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Mariamne, Queen of the Jews 



GENESIS, TREE OF LIFE (EDISON), 



THE FAIRIES, CENTENNIAL SONGS 






AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



Mrs. Sarah Burlingame Rankin, nee Lapham 



, A . 



W& 






CINCINNATI 

Press op Robert Clarke & Co 
1884 



a- 



U^ 



Copyrighted, 188-1, 
By Sarah Burlingame Rankin. 



DEDICATION. 



TO MY 

BELOVED PARENTS, 

AND OTHER DEAR FRIENDS WHO AIDED MY EARLY AND LATER 
EFFORTS, THIS VOLUME IS 

Affectionately Bcfcicatcfc* 



Through the walls of hut and palace 

Shoots the instantaneous throe, 
When the travail of the ages wrings 

Earth's systems to and fro ; 
At the birth of each new Era, with a 

Recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing 

With mute lips apart, 
And glad Truth's — yet mightier man — 

Child leaps beneath the Future's heart." 

— Present Crisis, Low* 11. 



SKETCH. 

The authoress is a native of Rhode Island, but by adoption 
a westerner. 

Graduated from the Female College, Oxford, Ohio, when 
under the control of the fvev. John Walter Scott, D. D. 

Married and lived thirteen wedded years in Covington, 
Kentucky. Then, urged by her only brother, Levi A. Lapham, 
a lawyer residing at Peoria, Illinois, she removed (1872) to that 
city. Here she engaged in arduous and unremitting study, 
laboring to deserve the esteem of the gifted and cultured people 
with whom she had cast her lot. "With the same laudable am- 
bition that moves the man of business to be identified as suc- 
cessful in his life career, the writer, whose only wealth is the 
acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of an inherited 
gift, comes before the public in a pursuit which has ever proved 
the animating ally of education and good breeding, and the 
strong cordon of social refinement. 



VI 11 CONTENTS. 




The March of Time, ..... 


118 


Ye Hills, ...... 


. 122 


Daniel Boone, ...... 


125 


England will Care for Egypt, 


. 128 


The Christmas Snow-storm, .... 


130 


Captain John J. Desmond, 


. 138 


The Pitiful Sight of the Changing Year, 


139 


The Rose, ...... 


. 142 


Sweet Spirit of Love, .... 


i r> 


Love after Tea, ..... 


. 141 


Mammoth Cave, ..... 


145 


A Scrap of Poetry, .... 


. 147 


The Pipe of Peace, . . . . . 


148 


The Dandelion, ..... 


. 151 


The Northmen, ...... 


152 


The Slave's Purchase, .... 


. 154 


Song of the Tea Kettle, .... 


156 


Yankee Doodle, ..... 


. 158 


The Trumpet, . 


TOO 


The Flag: ...... 


. 162 


Auld Lang Syne, ..... 


K)5 


Independence Bells, .... 


. .167 


The Old and the New, .... 


176 


My Country, ..... 


. 181 


At My Father's Grave, .... 


Ian 


Friends' Burying-Ground, 


. 1^7 


My Mother, ...... 


183 



MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

For the account of Mariamne, wife of Herod the Great, consult 
Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews," Book 5, c. 1-7. 

Zedekiah was appointed King of Jerusalem by its Babylonish 
captor, Nebuchadnezzar : later was carried to Babylon, where he 
died in prison. From this time foreigners made and deposed the 
governors of Judea, beginning with Zerubbabcl, appointed by Cyrus. 
Under Roman authority, Antipater, an Idumean Jew was made pro- 
curator by Csesar. His son, Herod, called "The Great," finally ob- 
tained the kingdom through the affection of Mark Antony. 

This subject became our inspiration while reading the Antiq- 
uities. It was chosen and elaborated before knowing of its selec- 
tion or before reading the dramatic poem on " Herod's Jealousy," by 
Calderon. 

The reader must take the production with its stamp of origi- 
nality which is the plainer synonym of afflatus or inspiration. To 
make the plot consistent, the poem commencs with David, King of 
Israel. 

The moon full-orbed rose over Palestine 
When David to the house-top moved his harp, 
Bootes waned paler while the stars decline, 
Arcturus glittering on his garter sharp, — 
And few the marshals of the starry wards 
Marching across the planetary court, 
But when the bard makes melody with the chords 
God gets the praises of the inspiring sport. 

His Harp survives the Koyal Jew ! 

The Land, 
The Temple, Priesthood, Ceremonial, where? 
The sacrificial-vessels, vestments, altars and 



10 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

Their symbolic furniture evocate despair; 

The Theocratic Polity has been fulfilled ! 

The Lion shall love the Lamb : The Child is at hand 

To lead the Lion and offer the New Command : 

The signs have changed, not God, who Omnipotent 

willed 
To change His Will, whereupon His promises stand 
From all Eternity. 

Now Adonijah 

Was feasting under the palms in Paradise, 
The Royal Park crowned with th' Edenic tira, 
A spot to allure and charm King David's eyes 
When within its labyrinthal ways he walked, 
• The conduct contemplating of Israel 
Or enjoying Nature spiritualized and talked, 
As Adam communed with this — and as him, fell. 

" Nathan is here, O king, and brings thee news, 
'Thy sons disloyal spread a feast to-day 
At which Adonijah for thy kingdom sues, 
Insults thy power and scepter, throne and sway, 
Usurps thy Birthright, and begins to reign." ' 

This said Bathsheba to the king in haste. 

" Solomon shall hew the traitorous crew in twain ; 

O prophet, there's no moment here to waste, 

Upon my ass bear him to Gihon, where 

Zadock the priest must anoint him in my stead 

As king ; the gathering multitude will meet him there, 

Shouting, ' God save the King ! ' and making afraid 



MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 11 

The rebels in yonder vale, and they will run 
Suing for ' mercy/ from my lord aud son, 
Death will embrace the old king here in peace, 
Jerusalem will nourish — Zion increase." 

Thus David spake. 

Moreover another king 
An acclaiming populace to Zion will bring, 
" Hozanna in the Highest to the son of David," who 
Shall ride an ass and wail Jerusalem's Jew. 

" Nation ! thy glories all depart as spoil, 
Drawing the lust of Conquerors to thee: 
With anise, mint, and cumin thou may'st toil, 
Serving the letter of the Law, to be 
Hereafter cleft and broken, sawn and peeled : 
My sheltering love, how often had it concealed 
Thee from the doom impending, even as a hen 
Appeals to her chickens under her wings ! but, Oh, 
Such love as mine thou would'st none of! again 
Go, tread the wine-press all alone ; for know, 
Jerusalem shall be cloven from crypt to spire 
And, piece by piece, be cast upon the fire."' 

It was night in David's city, and Herod kept 

His vigil in the alleys of the Palms, 

In that same garden to which rebels crept 

To plot their deed of blood. The Leonine arms 

Had been removed, for an Idumean Jew 

Rules on the throne of Judah's Royal Line, 



12 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

Roman emblazonries for preference sue, 
Though Jewish sacrifices have their shrine. 

A toga of purple wraps the Ruler's form, 

A present from Caesar, stitched with precious stones, 

Around his forehead plays a jewel-storm, 

Drawn by the moon, sailing high over massive cones 

Of the Damascus date-palm, every gem 

Glittering in his bandeau like imperious eyes 

Flashing with fire, and plashing the surrounding hem 

Of coppice with scintillations till there lies 

On either hand a zodiac of light, 

Through which he moves abstracted from the sight. 

His sight looks in ward — pondering his heart's maze; 
B twcen his brows the forked frowns of thought 
Darken his countenance, while a threatening plays 
Like levin in his eyes ; such threats had brought 
If in the cloud the lightning sharp to flay 
The queenly palm and Jealousy's fiercer ray 
May burn as red across a darker day. 

The swooping winds across the spicery snare 

The aromatic smells of redolent wood, 

Camphor, cinnamon, cassia are incense there, 

And the tall aloe soaring into the flood 

Of pearlaceous moonlight stimulates the air 

Which scarcely soughs, so heavy with vesper scents, 

The calamus growing by the pool, did spare 

A spicy breath, with sweet sebaceous drents 

Of nard, and Jiled's balsamic tree, balm sweet 

Were all which filled this estival retreat. 



MAEIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 13 

Throughout the garden flowed a gentle stream 
Knotting a crystal chord about the roots, 
Giving at every loop a sparkling gleam 
Among the brilliant flowers and verdant shoots, 
A rivulet led from Siloah's fount, 
" Going softly" through the Royal Paradise 
Till o'er a reservoir's marble lip to mount 
Purls down in cascade, sings its note and dies. 

The king came hither, where the Summer moon 

In all her glory seeming to be arrayed — 

A Heavenly Sheba traveling at high noon — 

Shone fully on his features, as afraid 

He warily came, as shy of being seen, 

Two doves were kissing, hidden in th' summery green. 

An utterance dark — and then a heavy sigh 
As if repenting what he then had said 
Escaped his lips ; 

Night's stillness then did vie 
With his stern pose, — when the weird coo had fled 
Beyond his ear ; 

Listening ; he listened not 
As the soft steps of woman's feet drew near, 
His heart throbbed too wild, and his brain too hot 
With anguish, that the light movement gave no fear, 
And she came nearer, near enough to lay 
Her hand upon the shoulder of the king. 

"Oking!" 



14 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

He started, as a tigress may 
Nursing her cubs, if a strange beast should stray 
Across her lair : 



Like blasting iron did ring — 



W 



It jarred her ear, that tone of ire 
As it had bruised a harder thing than flesh ; 
His eyes flashed like the sparks of steely fire, 
His frame strained every muscle like a mesh 
Which bound him rigidly, wavering and at bay, 
In the presence of Salome, sister of the king, 
A feline whelp of Antipater — and only they 
Who suffered her virulence felt how it could bring 
The wounds, the torturing pangs, the deathly fears 
Which strike to the life and poison as the sting 
Of viper poisons ; but her venom tears 
And strikes the deepest, she who loved the king, 
Mariamne, beloved of th' earth, for whom Heaven 

he sues, 
Daughter of Hycanus, High Priest of the Jews. 

That love is fatal which our fears can rouse 
To jealousy, which every fear pursues ; 
This snake in our love-garden, who can tell 
Which is the fiercer, Love or Hate? Two fires 
Which are attracted, and combining, swell 
The flames wherein the suicide expires. 

The king drew life from Mariamne's love ; 



MAKIAMXE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 15 

Many children of his loins had filled his court 
By mauy wives, though none to allure his love; 
Herod proud, voluptuous, imperious, held his port 
As a husband should before her, not a lord, 
Love never led a man by a stronger chord, 
As lion beside a lamb the two did go, 
Twins born of a ewe, the nestlings from one tree, 
Love fosters, grafts, but never prunes, we know 
Love by excess but not by penury. 

A wicked thought will escape and find, its breath 
Breeding infection or a blast of war ! 
Should the king die he had decreed her death, — 
And Mariamne learned the secret, for, 
Naught is so secret, but it in th' sun shall lie 
And winds will carry it, and friends will cry 
It from the house-top, and all the world will pry, 
Even as the shock opens earth to let in sky. 

Wrestling with constricting passions, on this eve 
Herod turned to Kidron's vale while th' garden lay 
Cooling in dew, and the full moon did weave 
Every color aud tint with her mild mordant ray 
Fixing a lutescent medium softly veiled 
About all heaven. And the peach-almond tree 
Felt its pink blossoms fade, Sharon roses paled, 
Purple lilies put on black — the livery we see 
That queenly star can most becoming wear 
Koyal yellow and black — these on the Labyrinth lay 
When Herod came there, where his jewels flare 
Like lamps among the alleys, every way 



16 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

He seemed the corona for the eclipse of day. 

The tormentress, who could turn the palace walls 

Into whispering galleries of vindictive ire, 

Hated the queen with all the hate that galls 

At the sight of love like Herod's, as spirit to fire, 

Torments the object of Mariamne's love ; 

His feminine moods, his tender inanities 

Entering the harem, taking no way to move 

Save through the portal of Mariamne's heart. 

Conjured up the demons of all the Insanities 

In both. T' secern these wrong by wrong, each part 

Unknowingly kissed the other to do a crime 

For divided ends; the means secured a bride 

For Heaven and him and all of Etern Time 

Should prove and consummate the bridal; Pride 

Conferred the power to make his beloved wife 

The bride of sacrifice for this. But to move 

All Hell and Earth to destroy one hated life, 

To pander a bride for Death, Salome's power must lie 

Hate, Mortification, Envy, Jealousy, 

Foes antagonizing heavenliness and Heaven. 

The king's mad love men would have seen forgiven 

As Time forgives ; for love is but the glow 

Of God's Self-Attribute and undefined, 

And men have crazed of love, this God to know; 

Have worshiped woman with as mad a mind. 

Gentile and Jew receive the promises : 
The one accepts the Messiah already come, 
Another Interpreter of the Prophecies 



MAKIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 17 

The other believes, — and still for all there's room, 

And God forgives. 

And now Salome heard 
For the first the king's decision ; from Sin's black spore 
The Tartarean apple of love lmng there and bore 
Such prolification of jealousy, it stirred 
Men's fears, knowing Herod's love tasted sweet before, 
Until Mariamne's woe stained red with gore, — 
As the Eastern Suri 1 snaps, like the wind's fair wracks, 
Her helpness neck must stroke the murderous ax. 

The problem of Existence here, when tried, 
God remains God, though matter returns to dust; 
The fool can read this truth; but, if denied, 
Does spirit return to be from what it came? 
Is there reunition of love with God as at first? 
The Brahmin trusts his soul even higher, its flame 
Refines in th' Nirvana' that absorbs its load, 
Though this divine psychism seems lotus flowed, 
Seems spirit inane as that on flowers bestowed ; 
Islamism prepictures the voluptuary's abode 
Of Love unending : It is " love, love, love," 
Which souls have cried since Eons began to move. 

But if the Christian's claim to Heaven must be 

" Purification of soul," alone for his purity — 

The Brahmin enjoys such a Heaven as this — just this! 

To be wise, like God, would relate us to higher bliss; 



IS RIARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

He is truly wise, He surely is purely clean ; 

Have tho works of God any stain to condemn, any 



moan 



Lei Heaven be filled with these, then, Let man 
Work out the problem of existence on God's plan. 

The grandest works of men become their gods 
'fill hurled together in their common graves; 
Things of men's hands ami human like the abodes 
Of foul corruptions which Destruction saves 

Burying out <>f sight. Behold how Herod died ! 

God compensates the worm with what He made; 
The worm pulls down man's monuments of pride; 
God remains i\od, and Spirit is Deified. 

Strator surnamed Csesarea, on the sea 
Glistened like silver when the sun rose bigh, 
Herod's marble city whose Roman luxury 

The Imperial Mistress of the world could vie, 

Whose aoble mole outgrew the Tiber's pride, 

Kissing the feel of Home 14)011 its shore, — 

At whose full breast the merchant ships did ride 

Gorging the voluptuous city at her door, 

Whose Coliseum tills the marble stage 
With gladiators, tor the feast of Death, 

Smiling as proudly on the assembly's rage 

As though its umpire waved the victor's wreath; 

And if the dew wept over his Promised Land, 

Sorrowing to see such impious pile arise, 

Knowing his Law-Giver was guiltless oi' the command 

" An altar for a human sacrifice," 

Purged his soul cleaner with his prayers and sighs. 



MARIAMNE, C^UEEN OF THE JEWS. 1 J) 

God's mercy tempers even Jerusalem's doom! 
When Jew and Gentile skulk along the street, 
And the Centurions with their hundreds come 
Bristling with glaves, and friends afraid to meet, 
Or meeting eyes grow glassy, stiff with fear, 
Face pinched and ghostly under the soldiery's leer, 
Men petrifying as though the Gorgon sway 
Of Fear fell upon all ; 

'T is the doomster's day, 
Mariamue's head falls by the lictor's blow, 
Queen of the Jews and Herod's overthrow. 

Hark ! hark ! what shrieks ring from Sebaste's walls ? 
What howls of madness, wailings of despair? 
Jews use no racks ; the rending wheel ne'er falls 
Mangling its victim ; what mean those shrieks there? 
The fortress rings with Mariamue's name, 
Court, gallery, dungeon, vault, and battlement ring; 
Night roaring with the confusion, morning came 
As horrible with din, and still more maddening, 
With Herod calling Mariamue's name ! 
Behold him crazed on love, remorse, despair, 
His love now fed by Hades' torturing flame, 
Jealousy has fled and Crime confronts him there 

" Her murderer": 

He calls, he roars, he raves ! 

*' Call," gibber the seven demons of his brain, 

"Mariamne s gone to Heaven, and there craves 
No love from thee uxoricide, the Cain 



20 MARIAMNE, QUEEN OF THE JEWS. 

Battens on thy conscience, ravening thee for love, 
And Hell is just and thou must give him love." 



NOTES 



1 The rose of Syria, which was called Suristan, the Land of Roses. 

2 The first person of the Hindoo triad is Brahma, the creator of the 
world ; the second person, Vishnu, the preserver ; the third person is 
Siva, the destroyer. But above Brahma there is the Nirvana into 
which the souls of men are absorbed after exalted transmigrations, 
and the attainment of neceesary purification for this absorption 
after death. 

As the Nirvana takes precedence of Brahma, with this absorp- 
tion the soul takes perfect repose and the enjoyment of all this 
Spirit enjoys in Eternal Bliss. 



THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. 21 



THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. 

Nous recevons d'une de nos lectrices americaines les plus assidues, 
Mme S. B. Rankin, residant a Peoria, 111., une charmante poesie en 
anglais: The Prince Imperial. ■ Cette poesie tout en pretant un hom- 
raage au Franpais qui vient de descendre dans la tombe, est une 
veritable ode a la Liberte. Nous regrettons que notre connaissance 
iraparfaite de la langue anglaise nous empeche d'en donner un tra- 
duction fidele. —Courrier de V Illinois. 

When Spring had warmed upon her breast 
* The violets, which the snows had pressed, 
And curled the hyacinth's fragrant hair, 
And sung the rose the robin's air, 
An angel peered from out the skies 
And thought our world a paradise. 

A woman beautifully fair, 

The gold of Castile in her hair — 

Indeed, a very rose of Spain — 

Was listening to the angel's strain, 

When, awakening from the trance, she knew 

The angel to her bosom flew. 

She threw her white arms round its form, 
She felt her wild heart, like a storm 
Of passion beating the old love down 
Since this new love was all her own, 
Till her still eloquence, tear by tear, 
Baptized the angel, "mortal," here. 



22 THE PRINCE IMPERIAL. 

Did heaven translate her in that hour? 
This was the paradise of power ; 
The air shook with a joy intense, 
" Vive l'Imperatrice et Vivele Prince ! " 
And banners blazed for them, as though 
Heaven furnished its pavilion-bow. 

The voice of fate was strong and clear, — 
She lifted up her voice in prayer, 
She walked no longer in a cloud, 
The royal babe had made her proud, 
For "a principality" she prayed, 
And asked no lower of God's aid. 

What was there that could be forgiven 
In this white prayer, that went to heaven? 
She only asked it for her son 
The royal lily of her throne, 
And every mother asks the most 
That kin or country has to boast ! 

Millions on millions knew her prayer, 

And prayed God "their first bom to spare," 

Prayed Him, " that sweat, not blood, should flow 

To give the grain its harvest glow, 

Their red atonements make France free, 

But not, a principality." 

It was the common people's prayer 
Rose from each fire-side altar there, 
Bearing each Frenchman's soul to heaven, 
Asking the least, that can be given 



GENESIS. 23 

To help God's frail humanity, 
But naught for principality. 

Not for that cold but mighty head 
Resting, at last, among the dead, 
That would not let men be at rest 
While he could hear the groaning breast 
Of earth beneath his cannon wheels 
Which lulled him with their thunder peals; 

Not for that cold and impious hand 
That slipped the chains upon the land, 
Hurled his coup d'etat at consent 
And mocked them with a President, 
Nor let them see one stony tear 
To calm their trembling hearts of fear, 

Will sword and banner blaze again ; 
Although France has her iron men ;— 
For Freedom leases life too strong, 
To yield kings this red-handed wrong, 
And Time, dull, stony-eyed will see 
A sphinx, of the Principality. 
July, 1879. 



GENESIS. 

Faith in God ! a stern expression 
Preached to believers in early time : 
"Maranatha, or a full confession," 
Thundered the Canon Law for crime 
Pain has lost its fascination 



24 GENESIS. 

For the man who kneels to pray, 
Brand and scourge and mutilation 
Amuse no idling bigots to-day, 
Heretics robed san-benito 
No court Ex Cathedra claims, 
Auto-da-fe has lost its hero 
Saved by this baptism of flames, 
Rack and stake from mind we banish, 
Iron collar, crown of snags, 
Not a man dare think in Spanish 
Of Religion using gags. 

Once, the stars the Lord has scattered 

Bountifully on the sky, 

Some souls thought they there were spattered 

For an ornamental dye ; 

The huge Opalescent Concave 

Wore the polish of a stone 

Which the fracturing fires engrave 

With a thunder-spliting toue ; 

And the things they claimed as sponsors 

For the young religious thought 

Were 'the things that were the monsters 

Recently from Chaos brought. 

Then, the tree inlaced in corsets 
Laced some maiden in its arms, 
'Twas a lover's trick, to toss its 
Purgatories at her charms, 
And the lilies in the shallows, 
And the echoes 'inong the hills, 



GENESIS. 25 

And the torrents in their wallows, 
And the wind's great organ mills, 
And the waters of the fountain, 
And the mists upon the river 
Had their gods who made a mountain 
Of our cosmographic sliver. 

When man's only contemplation 
Was a creed he could not read, 
He refused the Revelation 
Of the human mind to plead, 
Thought his intellect a treason, 
Thought the God of Wisdom bored 
With the attribute of Reason, 
Eve's lost attribute restored. — 

Mind began its resurrection, 

Broke away from priestly fraud, 

From the sun's concentred section 

This Copernican Sphere was thawed, 

Through the diaphanic ether 

Man could read the heavenly sphere, 

Lyra's music sounded sweeter 

When time brought the rhythm here, 

Aldebaran's noble anger 

At the Metador, concealed 

But an intellectual slander 

Of a scientific field, 

And the nebula was something 

Beside Berenice's hair 

Which so long had had the trumpeting 



26 GENESIS. 

Of a sacrificial air, 
And the law of gravitation 
Stars and atomies control 
When, the spark of Inspiration 
Touched the spark of Newton' soul. 

Darkness fled when Fracastoro 

At the baby-world did knock, 

Twas a Genesis he came to, 

Fossils cradled in the rock, — 

Since, we walk the earth's green door-yard 

Graced with statues water-cut, 

Read time's monographs upon hard 

Granite bowlder, porphyry strut, 

Propping up the sectile surface, 

And the clambering stair of trap, 

And basaltic column which trace 

Of Time's lettering every scrap. 

There's a Genesis of brotherhood 

At the table of the Lord ; 

Earth, indeed, has been the mother good 

That has set us in accord 

With the smoking tea from China, 

Mocha! O the Gods must dine her 

Tutelary Saint of Yemeni — 

These have opened the world to freemen, 

Savory spices from Malacca, 

Ruby mulberries from the Caspian, 

And the fig which seems to track her 

Seeds across the tropic zone, 



GENESIS. 

Grapes flushed with the fires VesuviaD, 
Lemon-drops from bland Mentoue, 
And the date likewise commences 
Where cooked victuals injure man 
And can lay its proud pretenses 
To Damascus and Iran. 
We have spread our Constitution 
For the table-cloth, our fare 
Is the marvelous contribution 
Which this generous earth can spare. 

Minnesota shakes the pockets 
Of her wheat-fields for their gold, 
Earth can find no way to dock its 
Bounty, which her coffers hold ; 
From the bosom of Illinois 
Rivers of milk and honey flow, 
Round the world they do "Ahoy " 
Her for all that she can grow, 
She has fields of corn so ample 
That her hungry sisters wait 
Till her locomotives sample 
It and bring it to the gate ; 
California's banners flutter 
While her northern cereals sweeten, 
And her southern fruits do stutter 
With their juices, when they're eaten ; 
And the sugars of our tropic 
Through as long a cane do flow 
As would serve to make the tooth-pick 
For a Patagonian beau ; 



28 GENESIS. 

While the oranges of Florida 
With the rice crop of Mobile 
Grow upon the glassy corridor 
Which covers up our keel. 

O the morning star of Genesis 
Points our residence in Eden, 
It is gaurded by a Nemesis 
'Gainst the disobedient heathen, 
Where true learning spreads so ample 
Every race within its reach, 
Every man can pluck a sample, 
We can print a book for each. 

Praise to God ! a grander Genesis 
Has been heralded through earth ; 
Christ proclaims his exegesis 
" Love the price of heaven," — Henceforth 
Nations called to love and harmony, 
Nations filled with joy and peace, 
While His grand triumphant melody 
Strikes the Heavenly key with these. 

Time is something that's incipient, 
God is never growing old — 
Eternity is but the increment 
Of to-day, which onward rolled 
Its next Genesis to unfold. 



PERSIA. 29 



PERSIA. 

A poem suggested by the presentation of the bust of Tom Moore 
to the city of Brooklyn by the St. Patrick's Society, May 28, 1879, on 
which occasion the union of Irish, Persian and American flags was 
introduced in honor of the poet of "Lalla Rookh." 

Hail, Persia, hail ! thy royal name 

Once the Koh-i-noor of nations, 

Is richly blazoned in sacred flame 

With Zend illuminations, 

And sparkles like the evening's skies 

With history's constellations, 

Ere Europe opened thy grasping eyes 

Thou asked Asia's oblations. 

Men gave to Egypt a name to wear 

" The mother, the eldest nation ; " 
God selected an Eastern vale to bear 

" The Paradise" of creation, 
And somewhere planted mysterious trees 
Where the tide of the green-gulf washes, 1 
Whose honeyed fragrance the blue-winged breeze 
Round the realm of Eden flashes, 
And placed man in the midst thereof 
Ruling his heart with beauty, 
The "Fallen Pair" in the legend of love, 
For thy Gulzar- 2 vales, might woo thee ; 
For the women of Yzed 3 have a fame as fair 
As their faces, which have no peer, 



30 PERSIA, 

In wedded life, the charms they wear 

Make man's only heaven here, 

With the broad that he eata of Yzedecas 

Ami the wine that Shiraz orders 

Ami the violet lilies which stain the grass 

'Long the gay ZayinderudV borders. 

The mightiesl among men which warr'd 
Thou hast begotten, O Persia! 
Thy babe exposed, to victual a pard, 8 
Was wiser starred than "Media, 
For like the Eternal-Hand which strove 
With the deluge at creation, 
Cyrus humbled the world, as a sea, to move 
For him of every nation ; 
His apotheosis left thy trust 
Pasargada's marble bier, 
When Greece had halted round the dust 
Which sleeps so potent here. 
His shield, scimitar, and Scythian bow 
Were all the tokens oi' honor 
His tomb, when opened, had to show 
The man who wept to conquer; 
Hystaspes left thee to reveal 
'The strength of Persia's throne 
His foot, vise found on his seal 
Carved on Behistun's stone, 
And are Persepolis' glories vain 
Surviving common things, 
Name, deeds immortally remain, 
" Xerxes is king of kings." 1 



PERSIA. 31 

When the locusts of Mahomet 
Swooped upon thee, like the horse 
Of St. John, thou wast the forfeit 8 
For Death's, or for Allah's cause, 
Over thy mountains, through thy valleys 
Where the fire of Mythras burned. 
How they poured, those lustful harpies 
Filthier than the swine they spurned, — 
And thy pure symbolic worship 
Without taint or shame, was vext — 
Just to please the harem's gossip 
Or to swell the Koran's text ; 
Nor can ive to guilt confine thee 
For indulging with the savage, 
Christian nations look supinely 
On his ravishing and ravage, 
Cities, villages and hamlet 
Know how Bashi-Bazouks murder, 
Thanks, the northern tyrant lives yet, 
Thanks to God for Alexander ! 

The poet has flourished his wand o'er thy vales, 9 

O'er thy flowers, o'er thy streams, o'er thy mountains 

and gales, 
He has filled thee with music like sweet Israfil, 
Who singing in heaven, the angel's keep still ; 
He has found the blue campaka blossoming there, 
Save, in Eden and thee, it's not found any-where; 
Like bright stars are the lakes 'mong thy hills and 

thy dells 
Where the blue lotus swings to the wavelets its bells, 



32 PERSIA. 

Or the nymphea blows open her vermilion-cup 
And the gold-powered psyche sips all her love up, 
Where the birds of the spice-wood build nests for 

their loves, 
And the orchards are filled with the blue turtle-doves, 
And the alma is full of its fruit and its flower, 
Where it hangs all the year in the sky for a bower ; 
And the soil shines as yellow with lilies, as gold, 
As each rain-drop a star from the heaven did hold, 
And the serpent is charmed by the emerald's eye, 
And the dew is too pure to transmit e'en a dye 
To the scimiter, true to a hair on its edge, 
And the fountains, like Zemzem's, complete every pledge ; 
Where the insects do sport such a regal attire 
They deserve to be " damsels" — for each graceful gyre ; 
Where the maidens of Cashmere come out of the bath 
With a skin like the tint that an Orman pearl hath, 
Where the tips of their fingers are rosy as buds 
Of the coral, the stain which the rich henna rubs, 
With eyes looking mild as the sweet eyes of Alia, 
With the dark shade that colors their soft drooping cilia, 
With the spangles of campac which purple their hair 
Like the luster of skies, when the planets are there ; 
But the rose of Cashmere can outrival them all, 
" The light of the harem, the young Nourmahal." 

Persia, through thy veins the purple 
Of the Asian kings has flowed ; 
Where thy common blood did gurgle 
There a love for freedom glowed ; 
Gao's 10 veins were filled with iron 



PERSIA. 33 

Like the Vulcan — of the gods — 
Under whose aegis he turned the fire on 
Which consumes all tyrants' rods. 
Persia, thou art effete and weary 
Like men when decay appears ; 
Nations lose their pride as easy 
When they live to die of years, 
And, their battle-flags have feasted 
The moth's epicurean taste, 
Aud, their armaments are wasted, 
And, their heroes' graves effaced. 

Thou, voluptuous Orient dying, 
Casting dust upon thy head, 
With thy beard dyed scarlet, tryiug " 
To deceive how near thou art dead ; 
Isfahan, thy crown, how craven, 
Hark, how reptiles nest in her ! 
And the birds of pray now raven 12 
On the sick Autocrator ; 
Yet two spirits watch and ward thee, 
Are the Prophet's cherubim — 
Rose -dew sparkles on their poetry, 
Are his dual seraphim — 
Hafiz', Sa'di's wings up waft thee 13 
Trimmed with love's enamoring fire, 
Blowing the ashes from thy story 
Christian-Freedom kindles it higher. 

How sweet the songs of nations 
Whose hearts are in accord : 



PERSIA. 

Their triune variations 

Arc one in praise to God ; 

Iran poured out a morning hymn 

From her religious soul, 

And when the sun's broad glowing rim 

Toward the West did roll 

Ireland's sweel harper laid his hand 

Upon his golden-lyre, 

Music the distance quickly spanned — 

The sun rose up no higher — 

America caught up the strain 

And sung the grand Antiphony, 

The sun went round the world again 

And Persia heard her victory. 



PERSIA. 35 

NOTES. 



■ The Persian Guli has been called (he "green gulf" by Moore. 

- < ; : 1 1 is the Persic for rose. Gulzar, a rose-bower. 

a There is a proverb that, to live happy, a man must marry n wife of 
Yzed, eat the bread of Yzedecas, and drink the wine of Shlraz. 
Tavernier, Tom Moon's Note. 

iThe Zayinderud— a beautiful feature in tin- view of [spahan— is a 

river with no outfall. Tapped at every turn, anil its waters led away 

to Irrigate fields and gardens, the gay Zayinderud lies In the plains to 
the east of [spahan. 

a Astyages, King of Media, and grandfather of Cyrus, saw a vision— a 
vine appeared to spring from the womb of Mandane, ins daughter, 

Which overspread all Asia. When the child was horn, the king deliv- 
ered it lo HarpagUS, a person whose intimacy lie used, wdio transferred 
the child to a herdsman to lie exposed on the mountain.— Book CliO, 
in rodotus. 

'''The scarp of a rock in Persia, on which an Inscription In Cunei- 
form records the victories of Darius llystaspes, who is represented as 

receiving the homage of captives, on one of whom he has planted his 
toot.— Translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. 

7 On the platform of Persepolis is the magnificent prnpyheum of 
King Xerxes, with the inscription, " I am Xerxes the king, the great 

king, the king of kings." -Translated by sir Henry Rawlinson. 

BRevelation, ix,7: "And the shapes of the locusts were like unto 

horses prepared unto battle." 

• For "imagery, " see notes to /,<///<r Rookh. 

1,1 (iao, a blacksmith, successfully crushed the tyrant Zohat, and his 
apron became the royal standard of Persia. 

11 In Persia old men dye the heard scarlet. 

'-The Shah's power exists hy favor of England and Russia. 

1:1 The two great poets, Hali/. and Saadi, were both natives of Shiraz. 
The former has heen dead Issyears, the latter , r )SS years. Their tombs 
are foniul in inclosurcs beside the path which slopes into Sliirazfrom 
the bills. 



36 THE GYPSY QUEEN. 



THE GYPSY QUEEN. 

Matilda Stanley, the Gypsy Queen, died at Vicksburg, Miss., 1877, 
and was buried as Wood town Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio, September 15, 
1878. 

In opening the poem we have used the idea in vogue when a youth, 
that the Gypsy came from Egypt, or was one of the lost tribes of Israel. 
It is now accepted that they wandered into Europe from India in the 
fifteenth century, and have since scattered over the countries of the 
West. 

Up to the wild-wood with her 
Gather the gypsy's quaint, 
By our Christian rites, a sinner, 
By nature's codex, a saint, 
By society's creed, an outcast, 
By their Egyptian blood, a lily 
Pure as the one in Nilus glassed 
Moses in his bulrush willy. 



Into this green wood temple 
Which rose without hammer or sound, 
Under trees that dance and tremble 
As Amphion's lyre was found — 
Gather the mixed descendants 
Of Copt or Indian blood 
Or the tribes of Israel's tents 
That vanished in Sechem's wood. 

Nature in every feature, 
Changeable as the wind, 



THE GYPSY QUEEN. 37 

Shy as the pretty creature 
That favors the stag and hind, 
Full of color and sunshine, 
Cursed as the Judas-tree, 
Free as the bear to dine 
On the dish of the wilding bee, 
Full of music as song-birds, 
Up with the morning lark, 
Melancholy as the words 
Of the prowling owl at dark, 
Homeful as the domestic robin 
In the cherry month of June, 
Harsh as the jays when cobbin' 
Each other with quarrelsome tune. 

Only the simplest fashion 

From conventional man they copy, 

The shady side of a wagon 

Or an open and airy marquee, 

A pot, a pan, and a griddle, 

With a fire in the open air, 

With a flue through the blue middle 

Of the sky, the smoke to rear, 

And like the winds, they pleasure 

Around this zony world, 

Packing along the treasure 

They fugitively culled 

From orchards and from vineyards, 

From corn and melon patch, 

And donkey after dark discards 

The thistles for the cratch : 



38 THE GYPSY QUEEN. 

As every wild-wood clan, 
They naturally are free 
To take from every man, 
Nor stoop to beggary. 

Children of nature, like their nurse, 

With preternatural sight 

They see the witches which disperse 

A blessing or a blight, 

They talk with river-ghosts which vail 

Their forms in gauzy mist, 

They know the Jack-'o-Lantern's trail, 

The Echo's hidden tryst, 

The cipher which the honey-bee 

Has put upon his bank, 

The witch-moss found upon the tree 

With its polaric frank, 

The wimple which the moon will wear 

Before we have a rain, 

The fish that leap, the frogs that swear 

The gypsies' art remain , 

The communistic flight of birds 

Which follow round the seasons 

Call forth their prophesying words 

Without prosaic reasons. 

Baskets of osier braided 
And mats of woven rush 
And fans whose feathers padded 
The water-fowl with plush 
They offer, with a hint about 



MY JOURNAL. 39 

' Your broken-bottom chairs," 
Or ask to spell your fortune out 
In the lettering your palm wears, 
Nor is their black-art spelling 
Always so far from truth, 
But, we think that fortune-telling 
Was the Endor's trade, forsooth. 

When mansion, cot and wild-wood tent 

Had seen the ripened shock 

Of corn, which, like pure gold, is sent, 

Put under key and lock, 

Then Death, with th' sable shadows 

Following in his train, 

Stalks where his potent arrows 

Hurtle, to find the slain, 

On the Gypsy camp has fallen 

And taken a shining mark, 

The clans have put a pall on, 

For the queen in death is stark. 



MY JOURNAL. 

Don't you want to hear my journal, 
Where I write my life in keys ? 
I won't mind an interruption, 
You may stop me when you please ; 

But perhaps you'll find my story 
Like another's — I don't know , 



40 MY JOURNAL, 

There is such a close resemblance 

In our lives, of joy ami woe. 

Time has made the illustrations : 
Youth, restrained by flowery chains. 
Tearing fretfully her letters 
When an iron chain remains. 

Woman, reaching stars to crown her 
Toils, to gain a dizzy seat. 

When she suddenly remembers 
Earth laid diamonds at her feet 

Then a pilgrim tired of waiting, 
With one pale star on her head 
Which at last must pay the obol 
To the Ferryman of the dead. 

Tis -i chain, however lightly 
It is fashioned, it' it warns, — 
I have lived to love the roses 
And to pardon all the thorns. 

Turn this leaf of recollection 
At the childhood of my heart : 
Now the nettle's in the conscience 
If I fail to act my part. 

Pray, what is a faithful journal 
Hut the open Judgment Book, 

Where we truthfully should copy 
dust the character we took ? 



31 Y JOURNAL, 41 



Here I babbled of a neighbor, 
There I helped a scandal fly 
For I listened without speaking 
And pronouncing it " a lie!" 

There, my heart was growing haughty, 
Here, my look was growing proud 
And 1 passed both men and women 
As do people in a crowd, 

And I wrote it here to warn me 
Not to make myself a judge, 
That to " look up and encourage," 

Had the world a right to grudge. 

Not a blank leaf in my journal. 
Not a blank day in my life, 
Wrong or right, I've thought or acted 
Up to human nature rife. 



Love was breathed into a woman 
With the spirit ot' her God, 
Felt when she was led to Adam, 
Named in honor of her lord. 

She has proved its sweet fulfillment 
Both in spirit and in law, 
Adam till he saw a woman 
Wondered " what was Eden for." 

Over and over, love is the drama 
Filled with mystery as then, 



42 MY JOURNAL. 

Just as tempting hangs the apple, 
Just as sweet the sin has been. 

Here I scorned a fallen sister, 
God have pity on her soul, 
How she struggled in her misery 
'Gainst the tempter's wild control ; 

Men have preached and prayed and written 
And sung " Poverty is clean ;" 
I pronounce it here " a falsehood," 
Never blacker lie was seen ; 

It has burned the cheek of beauty, 
It has eaten out the heart, 
It has poisoned every virtue, 
It has deadened every part ; 

I will preach it, I will pray it, 
I will write it till I die, 
That the curse of men and women 
Is the " Curse of Poverty." 

this page is blurred and blotted 
With my tears, tears, tears, 

Love can fill the heart with heaven, 
For its angels Death appears ; 

1 have had a cross laid on me, 
On a tree I have been crossed, 
And I wrote this in my passion 
With the blood which I have lost. 



OLD IRELAND. 43 



Let me shut the book up softly, 
Lay a mark here to be seen, 
I have sat thus by the hour, 
With my finger in between. 



O, GREEN BE THE SONGS THAT INSPIRE 
THEE, OLD IRELAND. 

O, green be the songs that inspire thee, old Ireland, 
With love and devotion at home and afar, 
A country denied to thy children's desire, band 
They, maddening to rescue their emerald star. 

Thy heart it has broken, while yielding to others, 
Who proudly have wooed thee for mistress, not wife, 
The sea and the ocean embrace thee like lovers, 
O why the espousal, that's slavish for life ! 

Thy valleys and hillsides if blooming with harvest, 

Or paling with famine, which stalks through thy fields, 

Alike to the serf and the beggar the protest, 

" The land for the lords, and the lords for the yields." 

If thine be the sorrow, the shame by thy eggers, 
To feast in the palace and starve in the cot 
Has made thee 'mong nations a nation of beggars, 
Thy masters have given thee this bastardized blot. 

Not of sinew and blood has old Ireland been paupered ; 
The world has grown rich on thy bone and thy sweat, 



44 OLD IRELAND. 

In the armies of Ind where thy veterans are quartered, 
Or laying the new world with Bessemer net. 

And ever, wherever they fall to the windward 
Of patriot, they answer the patriot's call, 
And freedom is seldom seen drifting to wind hard, 
But her foes have been shifted by Irishmen's ball. 

When thy wit finds its pole, in the heat of the forum, 
Its flash in the face of the Lion, is a shock : 
As Burke with his eloquence held him a spell dumb, 
Or Curran, or Grattau, or Phillips that spoke. 

But why are their words like the pearls to the swine-herd? 
O Ireland, thou fearest the strength of thy soul ! 
Thy bosom must release, at thy freedom, a free bird 
To circle thy spiritual and temporal pole. 

Thy soul must be free, as thy arm, to protect thee: 
No fear of the judgment that follows the blow : 
Thy God, be the Liberty come to defend thee, 
Who suffers no vicar to ask for thy vow. 

She comes an Immortal ! She comes from the burning 
Which melted the fetters from church and from state; 
A cross had not held up the Christ, to the spurning 
Of Roman and Jew, had she followed her fate ! 

She comes with the keys and the locks of the prisons, 
The seals and the fofgeries used at the dock, 
While Conscience waves proudly her flag of revisions, 
And Reason o'ertumbles the stake and the block. 



THE SNOW- BALL. 45 

She comes with the love of ji man for his brother — 
"And teaches the Earth and the Ilea von are one, 
The friends of this life are the friends of the other, 
And Hell's broadest gate is what hate has undone." 

With her for thy Virgin, and her for St. Patrick, 
Thy heart shall be nerved, and thy arm shall be steeled, 
And Ireland shall hail 'gainst the Lion, her bailiwick, 
And beggars, and land-laws, and taxes repealed. 

Whose harp can ring clearer, whose escutcheon shine 

brighter, 
In the romances told of old England and Gaul? 
Boast, boast ! for one name could emblazon a miter, 
Thy Wellington captured the Waterloo Ball. 

Thy instinct, old Ireland, is hatred of kingship; 

Thy sons find their glory where this finds a i'oc; 

In war and in peace they inherit a sonship 

With Mulligan, MacMahon, Montgomery, McDonough. 

And ever, wherever they fall to the windward 
Of patriot, they answer the patriot's call, 
And freedom is seldom seen drifting to wind hard, 
But her foes have been shifted by Irishmen's ball. 



THE SNOW BALL. 

O! a fairy dance has the beautiful snow 

Tumbling from tin 1 clouds above, 
With a flutter of tiny wings, so low, 



46 THE SNOW BALL. 

We think of the arrows of love ; 
First forward and back and down chasses 

And waltzes, round in round ; 
It is a ball of the snowy fays, 

Ou their flight to the frozen ground. 

Their gossamer dresses of snowy white 

Stream down the billowy air, 
Each wearing slippers of ice for flight 

Beside the wings they wear, 
Each crowned with a silver wreath of flowers 

Which bloomed in Jack Frost's hand 
When he froze the mist into crystal bowers, 

Winter's crispy sunbows spanned. 

Each starting for the Fairies Ball 

Goes light as a bubble of mirth, 
Unheeding the realm where the wild winds ca 

And whistle her down to earth ; 
The sprite who feels her slippered foot 

On the air's enchanted floor, 
Must dance, as she felt her soul was mute 

To all but the dance that hour. 

Still round and round in an airy ring 

Withforward and back they go, 
Till my terpsichorean muse must sing 

A dance for the beautiful snow, 
Till bursting through the dismal clay 

Which fetters her wings below, 
She flies, to dance with these frisky fay 

And turn to a flake of snow 7 . 



a'ihos ivsj'Axa. 47 

But what is the matter? While she sings 

Her tune grows fainter and faint, 
As though her soul bad dropped its wings 

And ceased to be a saint, 
Ah! there she lies on the frozen ground 

With all of the fallen snow, 
Reminded each happiest soul is bound 

To its treacherous bubble below. 



A'DIOS KSPAXA. 

August 3rd, 1492— August 3rd, 1884. 

A'Dws Espaflal cried ;i valiant crew, 

A'Dio8, wives and maids ! 
Santa Isabel guards what heroes do, 

Every gallant Spaniard aids, 
Viva ! Viva! for the roving gales 

Which hurry our ships to sea, 
Reaching the golden India vales 

They shall forfeit an argosy. 

Vvval Viva! our Sailor Saint 

Is San Cristobal's captain too; 
Men yield to courage; as lo restraint 

Roaming lands and oceans through, 
Imploring Priest and King and Queen 

Confessing a rover's tab;, 
Jesus preserve him, bless birn and lean 

Thine hand to his favoring gale. 



48 a' dios espana. 

Gracias! Gracias ! for God's mighty space 

Of Ocean 'twixt shore and shore, 
Nor ever Campeador did raise 

His courage higher before ; 
If storms will threaten and calms will fright 

And compass too will fail, 
The captain on sea will steer aright, 

The Lord with him remain. 



Four hundred years ago, the sea 

Wore this western amulet, 
Columbus found the divinity 

Then, jeweled from crown to feet, 
And never adventurer on the sea 

Nor discoverer on the laud 
Has entered the lists of chivalry 

To accomplish a feat so grand. 

The God of miracles made this west 

A Goshen of corn and wheat, 
Ships follow the stars from w T est to east 

From the south and the north to meet 
Columbia — where Spanish poet sings 

"Hope, is the fatal apple," 
Which sadly back to memory brings 

Old Spain's lost golden grapple. 



SANTO COLUMBO. 49 



SANTO COLUMBO. 

We would canonize Columbus, 

For our tutelary Pluck, 
America would never do us 

Without Columbia, for luck. 

Who his own canoe can paddle, 
Does believe that he did rock 

In the very self-same cradle 
With the great Columbo stock. 

Where you find the roof-tree plauted 
And the family does thrive, 

There you find the name is wanted 
For the hero of the hive. 

Here, the school-house must be planted 

On this Education Rock, 
And aside from this is granted 

To all dunces still a block. 

If New Doctrine prove the obstacle, 

If the Catechism slip, 
They have rigged the Tabernacle 

Just exactly like his ship. 

By the compass of Faith to steer it, 
Sails of Charity unfurled, 



r )() SANTO COLUMBO. 

And the rudder of Hope to veer it 
To an undiscovered world. 

To rehearse our Country's story ; 

For Spain's splendor and renown, 
She becomes the gem of glory 

Glittering in the Spanish crown. 

I have traced our Spanish story 
In the Mississippi's wave, 

Where the river takes a glory 
From De Soto's glassy grave. 

Traced it, by a golden blossom 

Where in Florida it fell, 
When it touched a poet's bosom 

It became Perennial. 

Saw a Cortez like a comet 
Sweep the plains of Mexico, 

With his Spanish sword did mow it 
With his Spanish fire did go. 

Heard Balboa's soldiers trample 
First the Great Pacific Sea 

And the Earth which grew so ample 
Was man's Star of Destiny. 

Where the northern snow-storms bustle 
Down upon New England hills 

And the western corn-fields rustle 
And the cotton softlv fills, 



THE LIGHTNING EXPRESS. 51 

There are masses by Historia 

For the Cavaliers indited, 
In each home the altar's gloria 

Is " Colu ra bo" when recited. 



THE LIGHTNING EXPRESS. 

BY A COUNTRY BOARDER. 

Like a Cyclone astride its black racer at night,. 
On a catadrome dark as the River of Stix, 
This Cyclopean horse, which is tamed with a light, 
Thunders sixty straight heats to the hour — like a 

Nick's, 
A tread like an earthquake, to make the ground shud- 
der, 
A plume, which an old Demogorgon might wave, 
Snorts of flame, like old Etna hurls up from his 

udder 
Of fire when expelling his amorous slave. 
With a rushing, a thundering, a bellowing afar, 
Like a herd of wild buffalo scouring the plain, 
Like a hundred drums beating the reveille of war 
You will hear at dead midnight the wild Lightning 

Train, 
Like a comet blazed out on the black brow of night, 
Like a meteor burst in the region of ether, 
You turn blind in its stare of Gorgonean light, 
Its Plutonean shrieks strike you mute as in Lethe. 



52 THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. 

While the cool lulling winds of the night are enchanting 
The heats of the Summer away from your brain, 
And Amor and Erato are tenderly planting 
Dreams of love and Elysium, sweet solace for pain, 
Lo! the bedlamite whistle has broken your rare ease 
And fractured your ear — while the dreams of the Muses 
Have fled, as the Lightning Train carried the Harpies — 
Ugly, woman-faced birds, which belong to the deuces. 

The Sun garnered up his hot harvest of sunshine, 
The dew gently dripped from the black locks of night, 
Quaffing draughts of sweet sleep, like somniferous w r ine, 
I lay cooling, and dreaming, and wooing the sprite 
Who was pouring her trifles of love in my ear, 
Wheu a shock to my sensories, pungent with pain 
Dropped me down from the cloud, where the Muses 

appear — 
I awoke, but to rave at the wild Lightning Train. 
June 26, 1884. Thermometer 96° in the shade. 



THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. 

The poem is founded on a story of Portugal, illustrating the cus- 
i of not permitting sweethearts to meet until the paternal consent 



torn 

is obtained to the suit 



Where maidens blush through their tawny skins 
And lips have the glow of carnardines, 

Where black eyes could be charged with sins 
If familiarly talking by dumb signs, 



THF HOSE OF POBTUGAL. 53 

Languishing, flashing, smiling, leering 
Were accorded a confessional hearing, 

A maiden was found to suit the tale : 

'Twas in the kingdom of Portugal, 
Where genuine Port wine is for sale 

Which carries the name of the town to all, 
Just where you would expect such eyes 

Were plenty after the Moor's rise 

Or a beautiful Jewess could think 

Her's were the eyes we were singing about, 

Toy Saint David left a link 

Which the Braganza counted out — 

Hounded out — with their arts and sciences, 
Then raised nettles for church and penances. 

The fact adheres, that Portuguese wills 
The first did shapen our argillous cake, 

For a De Gama's ships were drills 
For the sea, like a true earthquake, 

When he exploded Tormento Cape, 
And discovered the Earth's new shape. 

You will find in a true love tale 

Just the pluck to conquer Ophir, 
Portuguese captains did boldly sail 

To Brazil, then a Western loafer, 
Charting unknown seas with new found lands, 

Helping the Lord with willing hands. 
* * * * * * 

When we feel our passions tense, 

Sentiments morbid, emotions dumb, 



THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. 

Then we try the Persian Bense 
To the love that is slow to come, 

Darling, dear, my angel, Bweet " 
Feed the flame when sweethearts meet. 

Bui in the kingdom of Portugal, 

Strange, with their warm southern terror. 
That love is mistrusted as too dull 

A passion for lovers to talk it over. 
And love strategically is won 

Like a belligerent garrison. 

A maid with a heart as rich and warm 
As a blood -red Rose of Portugal, 

A soul as merry as a piper's shawm, 
Nor her's the exception, where in all 

The fields and veil as the harvesters cheer 
Their labor by singing in roundelay clear. 

But for a sweetheart she was dumb 
As the marble wife of Pygmalion, 

A prevalent fashion of the kingdom 
Where lovers are kept apart, and one 

Keeps watching the street from her window 
An admirer's pleading eyes to know. 

And this in the land of Camoens; 

And beside the reigning king is a poet : 
I have read a translation was his pen's 

Of Shakspere, truly he may owe it 
To the bard who wrote so much of kings, 

A friendly interchange of rings. 



THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. 55 

But flirting with a hint, with a sign, with a token, 

With a rose dropped carelessly at the feet, 
Sud soughings through lips that have never spoken, 

Palms clasping for hands which they never meet, 
Brought the lovers to that desperate bid for com- 
passion 

Which ended this pantomime of pas-ion. 

The Church here, holds Saint Peter's place, 
Retains the key for a girl's admission 

To heavenly love or its negative face 
Can equally send her to perdition, 

Are its arrows dyed with her crimson pain 
Tis her expiation for every stain. 

The wedding hour came round, and where 
We await the train and the marriage bells 

And dancers to unweave the music's snare 
While the gay bolero faints and swells, 

The troth was broken the ring united, 
As death was the only spirit it plighted. 

But hearts were broken worse than all : — 

The rare old Moresque jewels' blaze 
Was quenched in the sables on the wall, 

With the pride of the Olyssipolis 1 race; 
For the Pose had died of the love it bore — 

The Rose in the coffin, but not on the door. 

^ ^fi s£ ^ vf. yfi 

Lord ! in thy name it is ever done 

Suiciding in Hell that Heaven be won, 



, r )l'> THE ROSE OF PORTUGAL. 

As a lamb for the shambles love is slain 
With the body in bonds and the heart in twain, 

With Cross and Nail and Thorn and Spear 
The Church keeps crucifying here. 

Forced to a cell all bare and grated 

Went she, called "the Bride of Christ," 

With a human skuU was mated 
God enveloped in bloody mist, — 

Conscience dazed, and love a sob 
For the man the Church did rob. 

Thirty years he sought the pavement, 
Took th' dumb lover's statucd part, 

Storm or sunshine daily there went, 
Carried an old man's broken heart, 

While the nun grew old and waited 
Dumbly at her window grated. 



NOTE. 



Mn the Luclad wo read that Ulysses, in his wanderings, is sup- 
posed t>> have reached Portugal, mid that his descendents settled 
Oporto ; therefore the people were called the Olyssipolis raee. 



THE OLD WIFE. 57 



THE OLD WIFE ; OR, A MARITAL DILEMMA. 

Never for you, the Old Wife's role, 
Comb the curl from my silvering hairs, 
Bind 'neath a frill, that my frigid poll 
May mope the rest of my wifely years? 

These memorials, now remain the best 

Of th' orange sprays I wore, that hour 

I modestly felt I could proudly rest 

On your bosom, "a nuptial flower" 

" Peerless" you said on our wedding day : 

Do you prize it, as such, now my hair is gray ? 

It seems only a little ago ; — 
Time from every one will steal, 
Even the blush, which a maiden will show, 
Even the thought, which that blush will reveal ; 
With our consent, these, do seem to go, 
When there is nothing, we try to conceal ; — 
Time steals the blush, the complexion, the hair, 
Was it love, that you wedded, or only its snare ? 

Has the thrill died out of my heart, 
Though the blush has died on my cheek ? 
Does no fire to my faded eye start? 
Does the expression no praises speak ? 
You are troubl'd, that I 'm growing old ? 



58 THE OLD WIFE. 

Dismiss the robber, that takes your bride ; — 
For my beauty, a compensation you hold, 
He is blinding you, while you talk of pride. 

When the fire of youth is smoldering, then 

We are falling to ashes, year after year ; 

Till the dross has burned out of the gold, and been 

Cast out to the carnal heap, we leave here ; 

And we carry a heart without pretense, 

A mind relieved of corroding care, 

A spirit filled with a heavenly essence, 

A countenance holier, for prayer. 

In the heart of a song, love is ever sweet, 

Our voices attuned this, long ago, 

Our hearts did accord what the words repeat, 

Our eyes did fill up the measure too ; 

11 Sweeter ; sweetest sing it over" 

You requested like a lover ; 

Now I 'm old, to be my lover 

Will you try to sing it over ? 

By these shadows, 1 know I am growing old, 
By this curl that is part of a youthful crown, 
By the scent of death which the orange i\oc> hold, 
By the song that is still, the tune that has flown; 
Yes I am old, but one day long passed 
Never gro^s old, as the years grow old, 
It was when my dead from my arms, at last 
Went out with the coffin my heart did hold. 

* :[: & * * 



THE OLD WIFE. 59 

I know how love comes a wooing, 
How his footsteps halt, pursuing, 
How we catch the hesitating 
Of his hand on the door waiting, 
How we start, and go, and stand 
And hush the throbbing 'neath our hand, 
And check the tell-tale in our face 
By putting on a stiffer grace. 

I see favor presume to place 

Love on a woman's manner or dress, 

Beauty, which adds a softer grace, 

Riches, which adorn unloveliness, 

But my adoration's object 

Wore the soul's imperial seal, — 

This, the idol, of Love's project, 

This, I worship, through woe and weal. 

These memory bells, these memory bells 
Sweeter with years and clearer with age, 
Of the hallowed past their melody tells, 
The curtain of age is rung up, on the stage 
The drama, is life, the actors are youth, 
They come on and go out with their parts, in sooth 
Nothing grows old, except women and men, 
Nor too old, to go back to rehearsal again. 

We can play it all over, the bitter and sweet, 
We can freeze our tears in the fires of grief, 
We can kiss the fetters which bind our feet, 
We can carry a cross, if we seek relief, — 
Yes I am old, I thank God for this, 



()() NEWPORT, K. I. 

I have given the rod a parting kiss, 

1 am walking a road which I never miss, 

I shall pass into Heaven a child — in bliss. 

Last night in dreaming of love 
Angels were passing by, 
With harps they floated above 

On billows of melody, 

They were singing- of yon, 

I was dreaming from memory, 

In my heart is the song and the angel too, 

Must the Old Wife dream a threnody? 

1 am growing old and my years hold 

Together like this ring oi' gold, 

While I wear it there, my heart will glow 

In renewing the vows of long ago. 

Though I sometimes, ask of this ring, k4 if again 

Yon would marry me over, if unwedded, as when 

I was sealed unto yon in the presence oi' men?" 



NEWPORT, R. I. 

Written in the Redwood Library, ami copied, by request, into the 
Register of the Institution. 

Of all Earth's monarch's, here reigns one 

Men never will disown, 
God's seal is printed on the stone 

Where Newport has her throne, 



Till; BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. 61 

Her Royal Consort wears a ring 

Of costliest emerald 
Jeweled so rarely, it will bring 

The wealth of half a world, 
With this, he clasps her to his side 

Where love's wild currents flow, 
The world will come to kiss the Bride, 

But leave her pure as snow. 
December 6, 1883. 



THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. 

[Odyssey, Book 21.] 

The sudden transition of the narrative from danger and adven- 
ture to the spectacular scene, "The Bending of Ulysses' Bow," 
creates an ecstacy Beldom enjoyed in reading a classic poem. 

We trust the classic reader will appreciate our intention of giving 
a list of tin- suitors in the lines, preceding the verses in which Pene- 
lope haying discovered her king and husband Ulysses in the beggard 
Btranger, tries her Btrategem With her persecutors, by introducing the 
ordeal of Ulysses' Bow. 

See proud Ithaca, the goddess 

Of the consecrated isles, 

Drunk on love and wholly godless 

Maddened by a woman's wiles ; 

See the frenzy of the suitors 

Gathering for the final strife, 

Like Greeks when the clamorous rumors 

Made the rape of Helen rife ; 

Look at impudent Antinous 

The commandant of the train ; 



62 THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW 

Eurymachus who would do worst 1 
Seek with flatteries the vain ; 
Keep a watch on vile Ctesippus 

Who did hurl an ox's ]\vv\ 

At the stranger, thought to truss 
1 1 i in in Orcus like a veal ; . 
Sel a spy on slv Melanthius, 

That low goatherd of a tiling 

Who with slanderous talcs and envious 

Did insult his unknown king; 

Watch the Bueaking priest Leoides 

Who the queenly bed desires, 

It is Fate deceives his by-pleas, 

Bland his lust — she knows its tires ; 

Sir Mclantho's wild cotillion, 

Threatening with a blazing brand 

Him who dragged through tire proud Dion, 

Brought oft' Helen with his hand. 

Then contrast the kind swine-tender 

Old Eumaeus, who would spare 

Every thing his hut could tender 

Worthy of the stranger's tare; 

And the seer Theoclymenus 

Saw the suitor's shades descending 

Down where Orcus had a den worse, 

Their compatriots attending; 

Euryclea old and hoar 

Whose young breasts did nurse her king, 

Who detects the dreadful gore 

On his knee by the mad hoar, 



THE BENDING OF ULYSSES' BOW. <>:j 

Where the cicatrice does cling; 
Loyal Philetius, the drover, 
Kindling at the very mention 
Of a chance to be the mover 
For his lord freed from detention ; 
And the trusty, watchful Med on, 
Who tells all about the ambush 
Waiting for the prince Telemachus 
Whom the wily suitors will rush 
To destruction with their black curse, 
Ere, propitious gods Ulysses 
Let return to pay avenges, 
For liis vengeance never mi 
Any guilty herd's pretenses. 

While, Penelope contends 

With the clamors of the crew, 

And her chastity defends 

With a feminine wisdom too, 

Day by day the suitors waited 

On the warp her fingers drew, 

Nightly was the web unbraided 

And the garment never grew, 

Till her maids disclose their torment 

" That Laertes funeral job, 

The jealous robe of ornament 

Was contrived, their suit to rob;" 

Baffled her wit, the queen must plan 

To let the suitors know 

The favoring gods have spared the man 

Who bends the Elian bow, 



6 I i in BENDING OP ri \ BSES* BOW, 

Her ohallonge brings them all, accursed 

l\> touch the immortal wand, 

The stranger's fete the gods have nursed, 

llo hoars the immortal hand, 



" it is the how of [thaoa 

Whioh twenty loitering years 
lias waited for a skillful band, 
shall conquer all your fears, 

•• Bet up the silver circlets twelve 
A linear Bpace apart. 
Tho truest eye ami steadiest hand 
Will pierce each circlet's heart. 

"And those who pro--- their ardent suit. 
Asking the queen ' to w ife,' 
Will welcome the impending fate 
Which hangs upon the strife, 

•• Unto i be suitor w ho can Bend 
An ai row from the Btring, 
And bend Ulysses' wond'rous bow 

Aiul pass each silver riii:-, 

" Shall be disposed these queenly charms, 
The queen's fidelity, 
That all who hear of [thaoa 
shall hear what gods decree." 

The ordeal fixed, the princes spring 
To their appointed place, 



THE BENDING OF ULYSSES BOW. 65 

Antinous, chief, then hands the bow 
Alternate, aa they face. 

The priest, the first, with saintly poise 

Must draw the silken string, 
His hands have wasted all their strength 

The bow refused to spring. — 

The oext, accepts the stubborn horn 

Setting the singing reed, 
'• fcrength r< courtly arm-. 

Sealing his fate decreed. — 

" Bring hither, slave, the emollient oil" 

Enraged Antinous cried, 
" Knl), furbish every pore and part, 

Have gods our suits denied ? " 

''I' is done and still the Elian how 

Resists their heat of love, — 
Antinous yields his passion, which 

Thin ordalion test must prove. 

The spumy lords smart, as they felt 

A burning rain of hisses, 
Tli'-, sting is keen when they compare 

Their weakness with [Jlys 

* * * * 

" Permitted, I would try my skill, 
And doom the Hying shaft 
To pass the medium of the rings, 
My faux- once of this craft." 



66 THE FAIRIES. 

They jeer to hear the Btranger ask, 
"Perchance the fatea command 

That he should come to Ithaca 
To win the queenly band ? " 

Penelope with ready wit 
Now soothes the indignant flame, 
11 He does the teat— a spear, a vest 
Rewards his unknown fame." 

'Mid clamorous sneers, the slave then goes 
To hand the strifeful gauge, 

And when the deft hands prove the arm, 
As fixed within a swage 

It strains, it yields — the stubborn horn 
Seems the man's touch to know, 

The shaft peals forth its singing note 
Ulysses bends the bow ! 

So helped the king of Ithaca 
His queeu to keep her vow, 

The missal draws the suitors' lives 
Ulysses bends the bow! 



THE FAIRIES. 

I n a sweltering spell of August weather 
When crickets fiddle their souls away, 
When the mercury drops its silver feather 
Caged like a bird, from its soaring way. 



THE FAIRIES. 67 

The flyers, the jumpers, as well as the creeple 
Were watching a train of fiery cars, 
When Oberon crept from his leafy steeple 
Warning them, to run from the shooting stars, 
When from hollows, hills, meadows, pools, rivers 

and swales, 
From sedges, lushgrasses, ferns, flags and cat-tails, 
Flew the stars of the Fairies, the fire-flies, and soon 
All the Fairies were out in the light of the moon, 
But the march was too short, for a song with a tune. 

To rendezvous upon Clover Hill 
Embroidered by a turquois rill, 
An azurine lakelet, like a buckle 
Upon its toe, laughed a mellowy chuckle 
When flowery swans from fairy bowers, 
Tossing about like a shower of flowers, 
Bounding off, when they touch the brink 
Of a wave too lightly, to feel it wink, — 
Clasped each other — wing and wing, 
And waltzed thereon in a fairy ring. 

As I took the rustling wings to be 
The fairies making a head-long race, 
I made a screen of a huge oak tree 
And taking within its arms a place 
I soon forgot myself — to be 
An elfin a tent of moonlight lace, 
Which helped to deepen the mystery 
And served to show each fairy's face. 



68 THE FAIRIES. 

With lances atilt to joust his neighbor 

Each Ephemeron followed the rout away, 

Like doughty knights flew every chafer 

Making their wiues like iron bray ; 

Behind — the Sphinx with stony stare 

And lion-feet, on eagle wings 

With dust as from a thousand years 

Gathered thereon, in tawny rings, — 

A cavalcade of mosquitoes come 

Stunning all ears with their fify hum, 

Their bills as keen as Toledo steel. 

And prick like an awl in a cobbled heel ; 

The great stag-beetles brushed their horns 

Against the branches of the grass, 

In mail of shard the nettle's thorns 

Felt soft as mosses, as they pas 

The bats flew round and round as tho' 

The birds and beast should know each other. 

The only fairy which I know 

With an ornithorhynchus brother; 

Behind these gravely marched two crabs 

Xanthus and Arion from the sea, 

Their trunks like a peddler's eased in drabs 

Bore on their shoulders heavily, 

These were two fairies from the sea 

That promenade sometimes on land. 

But not so fishy as to be 

Compelled upon their tails to stand ; 

The goblins next — of all the fays 

These are the ugliest and the funniest, 

And just before the rainy days 



THE FAIRIES. 69 

You think their tempers are the sunniest. 

The victims of inebriation 

They drink of all the ponds and ditches, 

And wear their tails upon probation 

Then don a suit of leather breeches ; 

The lady-bugs in red and black 

Had paired off with their beaux in gold, 

And new, instead of the mushroom hack 

In which they rode when nights were cold, 

When lady-cow fell in a flower 

Which grew an inch below her feet 

And floundering there for half an hour 

Was almost fainting with the heat 

Till lady-bird hopped on a fern, 

Yelling so lustily for " help" 

Her cousin lady-fly did turn 

And laid the flower low with a skelp; 

The gryllus strode like an awkward crane 

Or jumped to keep up with the rest, 

Of green silk coats, they are very vain, 

With a swallow-tail, and a satin breast ; 

But the brown grasshoppers were the wags 

Who joked and teazed these prouder kin, 

Ogling their fine clothes, until the lags 

Were ready to die of a chagrin ; 

Blue and green dragons — flies that look 

Like Saint John's and Saint George's too — 

Had steely needles which they shook 

At Friar Boots, as past they flew, 

A tilt of lances one might lose, 

'Twas all the same — the fairy knight 



70 THE FAIRIES. 

Found that his lady-love would choose 
His colors be they dark or bright 
And these depend on day and night 
And these were fairies black and white ; 
The glow-worm flaunted now a snack 
Of livery differing from the rest, 
Looking as fine upon her back 
As though the blackest of the best, — 
The love of color did appear 
In fairies quite anomalous 
Some brown and black and gray and sere, 
Some painted like an omnibus ; 
And towering on their gawky shanks 
The shepherd-spiders bore their humps, 
Up-hill and down-hill playing pranks 
Beside the worms upon their stumps ; 
Where all the spiders bridges grew 
With a prison at each end of these, 
A shower of little millers flew 
Like parachutes among the trees ; 
Then, Mab drew near in gold and black, 
A butterfly's ermine, — beyond a question 
A match for Puck who rode a pack 
He named " blue-bottle's indigestion," 
The last — but fairies are not dumb, 
My ears were throbbing like a drum. 

The bands blew loud and shrill and clear 
Along this gay and weird procession, 
I thought the whole created sphere 
Delirious with the wild impression, 



THE FAIRIES. 71 

The trumpets blared until the moon 

Though goddess of the elfin race 

Turned suddenly pale as if t were noon 

And pulled a wimple o'er her face ; 

The trombones croaked until the sound 

Resembled Egypt full of frogs, 

The raucous croaking would astound 

A younger fry of polliwogs ; 

The tamborines they buzzed and hummed 

And kept up such a dreadful racket 

All sounds were for some seconds dumbed, 

The great dish-sky I thought 'twould crack it; 

The violins, treble, second, bass, 

Together squeaked and squealed and squalled, 

Things seemed to spin round— in a daze 

I saw the tree upon me sprawled; — 

While now and then a piccolo 

Screamed out its notes so shrill and clear 

The chitty elves thought 't was a blow 

By some big Ouphe upon the ear ; 

Mine own buzzed like a pair of drums, 

Whistles, fifes, fiddles, and jews-harps, 

I thought the two great concert rooms 

Would blaze with their electric sharps; 

When lo, it was about the hour 

Another king began his journey, 

Oberon skulked somewhere to a bower, 

The fays hid somewhere in a hurry, 

With swans of silver, car of gold 

Where clouds pink, primrose, pearl undouble, 

Along the sapphire sky he rolled 



79 



LA FILLE DU REGIMENT. 

Where all had vanished like a bubble, 

And Clover Hill lay at my feet 

The bees and bombus gathering honey, 

I saw all elves were not a cheat 

That these may think a man as funny. 



LA FILLE DU REGIMENT. 

Proudly marches on the nation 

Which its patriots will defend, 
But remains a loyal station 

With its daughters to commend, 
Cheerfully to send the heroes 

Who are called to field and tent, 
Cheers ! for those who hold the vetoes, 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

How she springs to weave the banner 

With her fingers deft and nice, 
That with freedom does inspire her 

And her soldier brave and wise, 
Red and white and blue the union, 

Justice, Courage, Love are meant, 
Cheers! for every loyal woman 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

How she cheers the mustered heroes 
As they march away from camp, 

As- she scorned, to think of dire foes 
Who waylay them on the tramp, 



LA FILLE DU EEGIMENT. 73 

While her vigilance perplexes 

Even the soldier, she has sent, 
Cheers ! for her's the loyal sex is, 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

How she makes the weary marches 

Where they rather die than yield, 
How with tear-wet eyes she searches 

For the dead upon the field 
When, she reads the news which smother 

Out the pride which victory sent, 
Cheers ! for every loyal mother 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

How the army's sanitarium 

Prospers in her loving hands, 
Homes, Sweet Homes, all recollect some 

Far away in hostile lands, 
Who are facing death and slaughter 

For the help which woman sent, 
Cheers ! for sweetheart, wife, and daughter, 

Vivent les Filles du Regiment. 

How she bears the poignant anguish 

In her tender breast, to go 
Where she knows the dear ones languish 

In the prison of the foe, 
Ask not " who " or " who " have found them 

After victory is sent, 
All where heroines around them, 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 



LA FILLE I>U REGIMENT. 

How her coming has translated 

Every soldier, when she staid 
With the hospital and waited 

On the siek and offered aid, 
Angels on their heavenly mission 

Witb no higher mission went, 
Cheers! she has the saint's position, 

Vive la Fille du Regiment 

How she kissed their rigid features, 

Kissed the eold and stony hands, 
How her sacrifice, will teach ns 

What a country's life demands, 
When they bore them and they laid them 

Where a woman can lament, 
Twas a woman's love who saved them, 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

How she hung the pall upon her, 

Looking- sadder far than he 
Whom she had brought home to slumber 

Under Earth's green canopy ; 
It is woman, tender woman 

Widowed, orphaned, should lament, 
War is to her the most inhuman, — 

Vive la Fille du Regiment. 

When, Divine Justice hangs her garlands 

On the heroes of all lands 
As Heaven musters up the thousands 

Of Earth's patriotic bands. 



DUST. 

Heavenly stars entwined, like laurels 
For heroic suffering meant, 

Will crown women with immortelles 
Vivent les Filles du Regiment. 



DUST. 

••It is asserted by scientific writers that the Earth is a vast cemetery; 
that on its surface, which contains 1,858,174,000,000 square rods, have 
lived 36,627,848,273,975,256 inhabitants; making 1,283 persons to each 
square rod, or five persons to a square foot. A square rod is scarcely 
sufficient for ten graves, hut each grave must contain 128 bodies. 

" Thus it will be seen, thai the entire surface of the globe has been 
dug- over 128 times to bury the dead. How literally true becomes the 
declaration of the poet: 

" ' There 's not a dust that floats on air 
But once was living man.' " 

I. 

How mighty is the sphered dust 

Which is trodden under foot, 
Made out of kingdoms, that the lust 

Of time destroyed their root ; 
Made out of principalities 

Which took their stone and brass 
And girded cities monstrous size, 

Which stood like withes of grass ; 
Made out of monuments it seemed 

Would break the tooth of Time, 
When Karnak o'er Serapis dreamed 

And the Sphinx was in her prime, 
When men believed that strength and size 

Were the portraitures of God 



76 DUST. 

Ami the Collossi Leered their eyes 

On the pigmies of the sod. 
Are men ignoble, that life warms 

Their forms of common clay ? 
Heboid earth gathering their forms 

Unto her breast to-day ! 
Listen, to the mighty host whose tread 

Is pressing green earth over. 
Alas, "t is builded of the dead. 

Oust over dust they cover. 
When Earth retook the lovely vale 

The site of Paradise, — 
And men had made the green earth pale 

Where hanging-gardens rise. 
Rearing Ivlus' confusing piles 

For priests and oracles, 
Were millions turned into the soils 

Which built these miracles. 
Where e'er on this broad earth we stand, 

On mountain, hill, or plain. 
In green-wood wild, on desert sand. 

By river, rill, or main. 
In presence of the eternal snows 

Or her perennial tl wers. 
The dust of tribes and races goes 

To make this earth ot ours. 
They are mightiest graves which Ruin til 

And mightiest tomb-stones story 
The mightiest deeds, the warrior tills 

To gem his wreath of glory. 
Vet. turned to dust, these look as reared 



DUST. 77 

As Old Creation's hills, 
See Nimroud's cuneiform marbles spered 

Which Ashur's house rebuilds ; 
For, when the touch of Ruin wrapp'd 

These in a royal gloom, 
Palace on top of palace clapp'd 

A dungeon round their tomb, 
Dust upon dust the mountain grew, 

City on city buried long, 
That twenty centuries never knew 

It was Nineveh the strong. 

ii. 
Count the nations which have flourished 

On the Asiatic main, 
Count them by the Hindoo Veda, 

Of whose age no dates remain, 
Century on top of century 

Piled these pyramids of dust, 
Till the Earth— not Himalaya- 
Is the tomb, where they must rust ; 
Count them by the heathen temples 

Sculptured in the solid rock 
The Titanic past has builded, 

We are building block by block, — 
Salsette, Poonah, Elephanta 

Have no dates to tell their age, 
And the earth must keep the record 

Of their mortuary page. 
It has buried living cities 

With its cities under ground, 



78 DUST. 

In one night were lost the truces 

Where these places once were found, 
When earth swept them with a besom 

That was fiercer than the sword, 
When it vomited its fire 

And their swift destruction poured, 
When the earth has yawned, and tumbled 

Twenty cities in its jaws, 
Hurled the mountains from their bases, 

Burst them by volcanic laws, 
When the mountains sent their torrents 

Like great rivers thundering down 
And the villagers hail tainted 

Like a blast upon them blown, 
Blistering winds whose touch is poison, 

Famine with its lanken jaws, 
Pestilence which breeds by millions — 

These at millions never pause, 
Who are moldering on the hillsides, 

Who are crumbling on the plains, 
And we walk upon their ashes 

Without thinking of their pains, 
O, the traces of the race- 

Who have lorded over earth! 
Have become a> smooth as places 

Which have never known a hearth. 

IIIo 

God breathed on a handful of dust. That breath 

Brought life to the common ground, 
A -ingle soul had earth that day, 



WAR. 7!J 



By its heaven and conscience bound 
A .-ingle form, which in common clay 

Has planted a single grave, 
A mighty usury, earth has asked 

For the little dust it gave. 



WAR. 



The jaws of war are wet with blood, 

V' S3, wet with human blood ; 
His whelps pronounce it " very good," 

Lapping their tongues for food ; 
Bat did the God of Wisdom fail 

In making man a king? 
That he, like every beast should quail, 

Hating this human thins: ? 



■- 



Man only of man be afraid? 

Man by a man to die? 
Then bolt the Book of God, that said 

" Man is like Divinity ;" 
Or lift Christ's bloody hands, and show 

The bleeding wounds he bore 
Upon a brother's cross, and know 

The blood of Hate no more. 



80 SCOTCH HEATHER. 



SCOTCH HEATHER. 

By the wild North Sea, by the wild North Sea 

Once grew my Scottish Heather, 
Where the hills of Aberdeen rise free 

And the firths flow close together, 
Where Jedediah Clishbotham taught 

And kept the parish records, 
And Effie Dean's sad fate was fraught, 

The Lily of St. Leonards. 

The heather flower, the heather flower 

Is one of Scotland's glories, 
To the Meg Merrilies, the moor 

Was like a bed of roses, , 
Or if, her wild feet brushed the dew 

Making the sun look late, 
Twas e'er the heathery crag she tlew, 

Scenting Dirk Hatteraick's bait. 

The heather-bell, the heather-bell 

Warred with the bold and valliant, 
A flowery rampart, hid the fell 

Where fared the royal gallant, 
When suddenly, the heather bore 

But Highland-bonnets blue, 
Saxon Fitz-Jame<, usurp thy hour 

For I am Rhoderick Dhu! " 



SCOTCH HEATHER. 81 

The heather-bell, the heather bell 

Thy muse is Caledonian. — 
Thy minstrel loves her lyric shell 

Twined with thee, like a woman. 
Though, verse thai paints so fair a (ace 

From the features of creation, 
Must e'er remain a modest trace 

And trait of imitation. 

But Scotia gave another flower 

To twine with rose and shamrock, 
A thistle-crown the monarch wore 

Where those wild seas are land lock : 
Too. like the noble elans who fared 

Upon her thousand hills. 
Thou wert — the emblem to be spared 

And feared, of, patriot Wills. 

I could na tell how sweet thy bells 

That swing on braes of Doon, 
Na feel love's heat the poet tells 

Let Burns to Mary roun, — 

For all was love, that Scotia's bard 

Has ever sung or spurtled. 
On Tarn O'Shanter's mare he starred 

With Maggie cutty kirtled. 

O heathery hills. O heathery hills 

Of Scotia's purple isle. 
Thy jewels, every lake that tills 

The landscape, with its smile. 



82 THE TREE OF LIFE. 

Thou art in Splendor, like the dream 

Thai pictures Paradise, 
Perpetual beauty, grand, supreme 
In Faith that wooes t lie skies. 



Till' TREE OF LIFE. 



TO THOMAS Al.VA EDISON. 



The world was chaos, where the Darkness throve, 
Ruling the grand confusion like a god ; 

The lightning was his scepter, which then strove 
With every part of the rebellious flood ; 

The thunder was his utteranee, to make 

The mass from center to circumference shake. 

And Chaos had hounds, even as God has hounds, 

Filling the whole of the eternal space; 

And Darkness sent his sentinels the rounds, 

Attraction, Force, Cohesion, which embrace 
Like iron, driven through the surging flood. 
Until the World was stronger than this god. 

Aial darkness fled, and two great lights appear, 

The one to rule the uight, and one the day ; 
And darkness dropped into the sea of fear, 

For even tin 1 night had grown a starry way ; 
And light was every-where, the light of sense, 
And Light that spake, and is the God from hence. 



THE TREE OF LIFE. OO 

And Licrht stretched forth his hand o'er firmament 

o 

And the dry land grew green with trees and plants, 
Prismatic with unctions flowers oiuting with scent 

The atmosphere. A spontaneous life which wants 
To flee the poisonous mists, which darkness spreads, 
Inhales the light and its reflection sheds. 

And light was beautiful, as it displayed 

All things which dressed the earth and walked upon it ; 
But Light was still more beautifully arrayed 

Than any thing, which from His hand adorned it ; 
Ami Light made man to be His holy image, 
Asking His mind's subordinate for homage. 

The Tree of Life still grows mysteriously nigh 
The Tree of Knowledge as they grew in Eden, 

Man can produce and he can multiply, 

But if he could create, would this be forgiven ? 

The life, the germ of all created things 

Indicates a mind from which all mystery springs. 

If all miracle is done by Jehovah's sanction, 
(The visions of Bethel and of Patmos Isle,) 

God's crystal ladders touch the heavenly mansion 
Which, glorified spirits passing up the while 

Carry their crowns of sacred leaves, to show 

His gifted ones have honored their gifts below. 

Beneath this tree the bard of Khio walked 
Trimming his lyre with its spiritual leaves, 

While 'round the strings his spirit fluttered, talked, 
Sung and caressed and the tree's mystery reaves, 



84 THE TREE OF LIFE. 

Filling hi s i<le with music, that was meet 
To bring all Greece to listen, at his feet. 

And from this tree, they took the garlands fair 
And decked the Roman streets and Capitol 

When thousands shouted, "Bring the conqueror where 
Poets are crowned Immortal, when their crowns are 
full." 

But Tasso, stretched upon his dying bed, 

Visioned the tree in Paradise, instead. 

This was a Gibbon's wreath, who climbed his way 
Up seven hills, to view the Roman world, 

And from their dome, beheld her columns sway 
Till Pagan, Christian were to ruin hurled, 

Aiul all their dust rose up as black as night 

And fell in seas of blood, before the Light. 

These leaves, which grew from Spain to Eastern Iml 
And Western India, the discoverers knew, 

De Grama and Columbus sought to find 

Where'er the Tree ot' Life, for healing, grew. 

From Imperial Calicut to Mexico 

The inspiring fragrance over seas did blow. 

When, Genius tired of writing occult adornments 
And hieroglyphics in the burning East, 

Worcester and Watt took up her costly ornaments 

To deck their motor which hard toil released. 
And all the nations are with iron crowned 
These God-like minds lifted like thread, and bound. 



nil- I'Kii: OF LIFE. 85 

If the new Apocalypse is Bunyan's vision 
Newton and Priestly preach as divine a Word, — 

"The light is rainbow, and the air's phlogiston 
Is living breath, vital as breath of God, 

Earth is a prism tor the Solar Star. 

Her Sowers the changing sunbeams of his car." 

Struggling with laws of decay and development 
Man fills his heaven with what he can create; 

The •• Nature of the God" seems not content 
With any beginning ami end, — Like nature's fate, — 

His labor ami rest with time are striving still. 
Ami man the factor of His creative will. 

'Inns man regains at last the higher life : 
Setting his face toward Paradise, once more; 

When Franklin sent his key where clouds wore rife 
With lightnings, to his creative mind it bore 

A heavenly message of man's will o'er force : 

Then laid the bridle in the hands of Morse, 

Ami thou hast reached the mystery of voice — 
Which comes from God, and unto God returns, 

Which leaves, a man as cold and free of noise 
Aj3 the dead rock, which mortal dust inurns, 

Can sway and poise it like a tangible thing 
Making it dance along upon a string. 

Thou touchest, with tear, the terrene ear of man 

To listen if his God, afar, can hear ; 
Wishing his heart were better, than the plan 

He's daily following, lest his Lord appear; 



86 THE RIVER OF TEAKS. 

Strengthening his faith, thou exploresl the sensive way — 
Songs of redemption to the dying stray. 

Thy brow is glorious, which the Tree of Life 

Has crowned, which seeing, thou hast plucked and 
eaten ; 

Thy venture was toward God. who said — in grief — 
"To eat thereof is to live forever" in Eden ; 

This was but typical, shadowing from the sight 

The Eternal Glory in the Eternal Light. 



THE RIVEB OF TEAKS. 

The world is swept by a sorrowful flood 

The ilood of the river of tears, 
Poured from the exhaustless human heart 

For thousands and thousands of years, 
It is -weeping thousands and thousands of lives 

On its currents, swift and strong, 
O the river oi' tears, for thousands of years 

Has swept like a flood along. 

O the river of tears, O the river of tears 

Is full of floating wrecks. 
Some stranded on the shores oi' youth, 

Some, manhood tread their decks 
Proud and ready t > grapple with fate 

Whether sun or storm is strong, 
O the pale wreck sent on the river oi tears 

Shows the fiffht was tierce and long. 



qiNCINNATT, THE QUEEN CITY. 8*3 

The river of tears, the river of tears 

Is lashed by fearful storms, 
The isles of oeean would rend and sink 

If tried by the heart's hard qualms; 
Blasting brilliant results like fire, 

Hurling down schemes like straw, 
O the maelstrom of the river of tears 

Drowns the bravest, death e'er saw. 

One haven has the river of tears 
With a Pharos always light, 

All tears are wept ere we touch that shore 
\o more to mar our sight, 

A Father that's God or Lord or Christ- 
Will clasp us by the hand, 

And the flood of tears roll back in fear 
At the sight of the Happy Land. 



CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. 

Cincinnati's crown descends 

From her Aboriginal kings. 
And her Roman pride contends 

For the splendor her name bring.-. 
In a lodge of silvan birches 

Dwelt a daughter of the wood, 
Her baptism paid the purchase 

Where Losantiville then stood. 



88 CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. 

Petticoated in a fawn skin 

Fringed with blue and scarlet feathers, 
Stitched together with the quill pin 

Which the spiney hedgehog gathers, 
And the crane bills strung like needles 

Dangling at her belt, to show them, 
For the crane bewitched the evils 

And was the Miami's totem. 1 

Braided thongs her bare feet covered 

Of the badger's spotted coat, 
Naught above her shoulders hovered, 

Save a necklace at her throat 
Formed of humming birds which glisten 

Blue, and emerald, and gold, 
And the sunbeams seem to misten 

Touched, her raven hair unpolled. 

To Fort Washington they brought her, 

She became a soldier's bride, 
Cincinnati is their daughter, 

Born to rule a queen beside ; 
And a great and flowery kingdom 

Trending westward with the sun, 
Soon to yield a royal income 

With her was the dower he won. 

And the red man could not save her 
When the white man laid the snare ; 

For the wiser ways are braver 
And the ways of God are there ; 



CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. 89 

Id the pauses of creation 

God still asks for " wider room," 
And the hand of civilization 

Makes the desert places bloom. 

Lo ! the wondrous change, enchanted 

Forests bow before the ax, 
And the fields are plowed and planted 

As the springtime comes and tacks, 
Till the summer's sunshine's drifting 

Down upon the Indian corn, 
As the fruitful year is shifting 

Bringing round the harvest horn. 

When the river like a driv'ler 

Only lay awake to dream, 
And the bark canoe did quiver 

Like a lily on the stream, 
The unlettered Indian never 

Its mysterious forces found, 
Never could with reason sever 

Elements by laws profound. 

But the virgin queen was smitten 

With an intellectual king, 
When she saw his name was written 

On th' Ohio's wedding ring, 
Though the pride and pleasure given 

For the present of the groom, 
Sank as though the wrath of Heaven 

Buried Fitch beneath its gloom. 



90 CINCINNATI, THE QUEEN CITY. 

Lo ! his altar fire is burning 

In liis temple on the river ; 
Though no Stygian boatman's perning 

Now, the obolus of silver 
Wafting souls to their Elysia, 

The prefigurement of bliss, — 
The Ohio's Artemesia 

Made his mausoleum, this. 

Lo ! the ponderous steamer threading 

Like a swan the liquid floor, 
And the vales and hillsides spreading 

Corn and wine and oil, and more, 
Men are opening the treasure 

Kronos buried in the hill, 
And are trembling with the pleasure 

Which did olden Titans thrill. 

Queen of Industry ! here planted 

And enthroned upon the hills, 
Cincinnati's wealth is chanted 

By ten thousand voicing rills 
When the clappers with their clamors 

Fill with music every steeple, 
And the music of their hammers 

Praise the Lord and bless the people. 

Queen of Art ! divinely planted 
With thy sweet melodic shell, 

Every air to be enchanted 
By a siren's witching spell; 



THE MOUNTAINS. 91 

Patroness of Arts ! we name thee 
More than all the "Masterpiece," 

Flourishing shall grow the bay tree, 
Consecrated here, to these. 

Since Ohio's noble mountains 

Were explored for their wealth, 
And her river, from its fountains 

Has been traveled for its health, 
And the years have left the harvest 

Heaped like gold upon its shores, 
Men have kept thine honor fairest 

Which the page of history stores. 
April 15, 1883. 

1 In searching for the totem of the Miamis,we found in Schoolcraft's 
Myths that "Twak Twah," the cry of the crane, was the Indian ety- 
mology of the word Miami. Mr. Newton, librarian at College Build- 
iug, tells us that for an archery club who desired to take the name 
" Miami,'' and to use the totem as their insignia, he was unable, in his 
researches, to find the totem. Therefore we have assumed the crane 
as a poetic license until this or the correct totem is found. 



THE MOUNTAINS. 

Wkitten in the cars while crossing the Alleghenies, January 11, 
1884. 

These mountains are a magnet, which appear 
Attracting the sphere beneath them to the skies, 
Mountains which cause Infinity to draw near, 
Where stars draw 7 closer with their glittering eyes ; 



92 NIAGARA. 

Only the Eagle scales this dizzy height, 
Embracing with the San, while both alight 
Viewing the two Hemispheres of our World, 
The Nadir's half, from which the light just rolled 
Now sowing its ebon vault with relays of stars, 
Like some vast Ethiop temple, toward which draws 
The sable worshipers with flammeous torches, — 
And the proud Eagle taking these mountain gorges 
For the Earth's periphery, darts for a race 
Making yon loftier peak their goal in space, 
Too high to fear the cyclone's hundred hands 
Pound bootlessly the base whereon this stands ; 
But Praise is winged for grander heights than moun- 
tains, 
Singing " Glory to God " beyond the Sun's fire-fountains. 



NIAGARA. 

Written on first seeing Niagara Falls, October, 1876. 

God sealed thee His, Niagara ! 

Omnipotence, His sign ; 

Clothed thee with His Potential Awe 

Unutterable, divine, 

And gave His Strength unto thy brow, 

His Beauty to thy bow, 

His Mystery to the ages thou 

Hast rolled along, till now. 



NIAGARA. 93 



Thou wast ordained impervious 
To Nature's softer sounds, . 
The voice, the song exalting us 
Thy diapason drowns, 
The electric tempest in the sky, 
The bolts of death it deals, 
Its thunder-volleys as they fly 
Thy heavier bass o'erpeals. 

Thou art High Priest of Nature here, 

Her solemn rites attend, 

And ephod-stones, thy shoulders rear, 

Thy inceuses ascend 

Vailing with mystery thy throne, 

Thy voice is raised to bless 

Her worshipers, who hear thy tone 

In deep devotiousness. 

'T was the Eternal's hand reared thee 

This mighty altar-place, , 

Of His most ancient masonry 

Whereon Kronos we trace, 

Thy Isles are water-walled and strong, 

In the Almighty's plan 

To keep thee priest of Nature long, 

He made the form of man 

To be a shadow on thy brink, 

A bubble on thy wave, 

A vision which a wink can sink 

Into an awful grave. 



i>4 VINEGAR HILL. 

And thou, like the Invisible, 

Can'st span above thy head 

A glorious bow divisible 

Of the Sun's Iridian thread, 

Lifting the clouds to the heaven which 

Consecrated thee at birth, 

When the firmament found its fountains rich 

And poured them on the earth. 

" Glory, glory, glory, glory," 
Seraphic in sun and storm, — 
Thou art unlike the restless sea 
Which loves its hours of calm, 
But everlasting anthems raise 
Like Old Creation's Saint, 
Inspirer of man's feeble praise 
Till our Star rechaosed faint. 



VINEGAR HILL. 

Vinegar Hill, in Ireland, was the principal camp of the rebels 
during the rebellion of IT'.ts. The prime mover and chief of the reb- 
els in the county of Wexford was Father John, a priest who insulted 
religion by his cruelties and liberty by his crimes. Twenty priests 
celebrated mass at one time on different parts of Vinegar Hill, while 
the plundered cellars of the country around furnished the spirits for 
the occasion. 

Have you heard of the place they call Vinegar Hill 
In the country of Ireland the county of Wexford ? 

You will both find it down on the map and you will 
Find it down in the book that 's indited for record; 



VINEGAE HILL. 95 

Like all the ferments of the Irish, you will 
Charge them all to the spirits, on Vinegar Hill. 

The Irish can Sweden their fay with the tongue 
After kissing at Killarney the swate Blarney Stone, 

And fai.r, don't you know every man is half hung 
By the heels, tike Saint Peter, till the hissing is done f 

For this pious shaking like a bottle, they still 

Quaffed the more to the Saint, upon Vinegar Hill. 

You can learn in few words that this Vinegar Hill 
Is famous for gaul, as the Gaul that bounds Biscay, 

Where the brave Father John camped his militants, 
till, 
He had gathered a crop of th' good Irish whiskay, 

Till the Protestants' barrels were piked and the rill 

Had fermented the army on Vinegar Hill. 

With pistol in holster and sword at his side 

And a cross of three feet to embrace in the saddle, 

The doughty priest John did as valiantly ride 
As a Protestant trooper the devil could addle, 

Be shure! All the saints he had mustered until 

They came swarming to meet him on Vinegar Hill. 

Instead of the Host, evil-spirits by the barrel 

Down the Gadarene troop how they slipped, in the 
storm, 

They toasted men over the fire, in this quarrel, 

And the pike made the Protestants' cross of reform, 

" For Jasus and Liberty" Father John still 

Was imbibing the spirits on Vinegar Hill. 



96 the doom ov v\u\:. 

If Liberty we]»t upon Vinegar Hill 

For the smoke of the mass Mere her eyes never dry ; 
A covering of rags may be honorable, till 

They are thought the immaculate dress of the sky; 
But the Friar with sword and with gnu ever will 
Be the Saint she abhors upon Vinegar Hill. 

Justice even, sweat blood, as 't were her Incarnation, 
Her side it was gashed as the side of God's son, 

But she balanced the cross in her greatest prostration 
And swerved not with pain, till her justice was known. 

And the friars and the saints got as much in Crod's Bill 

As she made out against thorn at Vinegar Hill. 



THE DOOM OF FIRE. 

" Holy be the lay 
Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way." 

This poem was composed after the falling of the Ashtabula bridge, 
December, 1876, in which terrible accident, owing to the criminal 
careleBSnesS Of Officials, three coaches, with all their passengers were 
burned, the loss of life being so complete that scarcely a vestige of 
clothing remained unconsumed. In this holocaust a eousin of the 
writer perished, a pocket pin-CUShion being the only shred recovered 
and identified by his mother, of Des Moines, Iowa. 

Lo, THE vials of wrath are poured out on the land, 
And the day of cur doom seems already at hand, 
We are shaken by terror, and broken by grief 
And the earth seems to spurn every look of relief, 
The tomb is refused, and the shaft is un reared, 
Death-hardened, the vengeance of God is uufeared. 



THE DOOM OF FIRE. 97 

O our eyes have grown dryer than sand e'er the noon, 
Or the lake wiped away by the fiery simoon ; 
We are uttering the wail of Egyptian despair ! 
We are wailing the cry of poor Kama's wild share ! 
And our hearts 'fore the furnace of Moloch have sunk, 
AVhile the flames with the blood of our children, are 
drunk. 

Are we stifFer in neck ? are we harder in heart ? 
Are we charmed with our sins and our lusts? till apart 
With the followers of Dagon and Baal, we class 
'Mong our Gods only iron, gold, silver, and brass ? 
Have we shrunk to the size of the Heathenish King, 
Must we walk through the fire, or worship— the thing ? 

There's a God .'—though the ears of mankind have 

grown deaf 
To the groans of the dying, the sighings of grief, 
There's the mansion of God for the graveless above, 
And the bosom of God for the angels we love, 
There's the tender compassion of Jesus their friend, 
And the kind ministrations which never can end. 

Ye'll not turn to the coffin and bier with your grief, 

Ye will turn to the Father and seek for relief; 

O no, the cold earth has not given them rest, 

But the flowers will again speak to ye from her breast 

Of the beauty of heaven, the glory of hope, 

Though the types will grow paler, wherever ye grope. 

Ye will live in the spirit with seraphs and God ; 
Ye will walk where the feet of the carnal ne'er trod ; 



98 THE NEW ENGLAND DAISY. 

Ye will look far away from this clod and a stoue ; 
Ye will learn how the visions of just men were known 
Ye will watch for the coming of judgment, nor fear ; 
Ye will go out prepared when the summons is here. 



THE NEW ENGLAND DAISY. 

[Tins flower is not found in the Western States.] 

Where New England's vigorous clime 



■c j 



Fosters noble, classic rhyme, 

Like a star that dropped from glory, 

Stood the legend of Burns before me. 

Where the clannish spirit stalks. 
In old Scotia filled with lochs, 
When the poet chanced to gaze 
In the furrow, on its rays. 
Seemed the plow his hand did gauge 
To accept the minstrel's wage, 
Like a harp his touch could thrill 
With the afflatus of his will, 
And the inspiration came 
Like an ecstasy of flame. 

And the plow seemed burning clear 
Without either scar or sere, 
As the bush on Horeb burned 
When to flame the foliage turned, 
And the daisy at his feet 
Was translated to a seat 



THE PLANETS. 99 



'Mong the Muses, — where it raises 
For the poets, New England daisies. 
Fall River, Mass., August 7, 1883. 



THE PLANETS. 

Inscribed to Professor Hall, of the Naval Observatory, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Professor Hall, the discoverer of the moons of Mars, has christ- 
ened his twin pets with the Homeric names of "Deimus" and 
" Phoebus." This fortunate American astronomer was lately voted a 
French medal, as the hero of the greatest achievement in astronom- 
ical research for the year 1877. 

Two " singiog stars" fondly appear 

Together in the evening sky, 
Saturn sings tenderly and clear 

And Mars sings strong the harmony. 

The very oldest songs they sing 

Of young creation and of war ; 
The epochs only, time can bring, 

Who first the mighty singers saw. 

"The Past," with recollection phased 

What the first noble voice can sing, — 
When Earth stood blushing and amazed 
And numbered with his young offspring. 

"Of Rhea" he begins to sing, 

When stern Succession wedded them ; — 
" When Jupiter new-born did bring 

To Saturn his lost diadem." 



100 THE PLANETS. 

And while he sings, a lovely throng 
Who now recall their father's voice, 

Draw near, to hear the starry song 
And in his virile age rejoice. 

Yesta who trembled in her youth 
To hear his winged feet draw near, 

Has quite forgotten her mother's ruth 
Who hid the infant Jove from fear. 

Ceres grows radiant, when she hears 

The golden-age again rehearsed, 
The fire which warms the immortal years 

Within her golden seeds are nursed, 

Neptune the grave, the silver-hair, 

Whose trident parts the threatening cloud 

Among the clouds is seen to fare 

Where storms heat wild and winds roar loud. 

And Juno her enchantment lends — 
Wrapped in the starry mist of night, 

And to her father's bosom sends 
The arrows, of her eyes delight. 

All are with song enraptured — but 
Another's thrilling strain, descends ! 

Like cymbals, clash the numbers shut, 
For hark! the martial theme impends. 

"O'er Priam's strong mysterious wall 
Encircling his loved city round, 



Till] PLANETS. 101 

Mars' ruddy torch was hailed of all 
The Greeks in arms, upon the ground. 

But ill-conteut to see the sway 

Of battle with the Grecian band, 
He rallies Hector in the fray — 

And sinks by Diomede's hand. 

Thus year by year he lit the tide 

Of conflict on the Trojan plain, 
Till death to Hector did betide 

And Troy wailed o'er insulted slain. 

When Persia leagued with death — her plan 

Arrayed her soldiery ten to one, 
Mars was with every Grecian man 

Upon the field of Marathon. 

E'en Christianity has named 

Him as defender of the faith ; 
And the Mohammedan that's claimed 

By him, gains Paradise with death. 

All nations ask his starry flag 

As ally round this sphered world ; 
Above embattled Malta's crag 

To death and glory 't was unfurled. 

Those lands in winter armor bound 
Which scarcely feel the tread of war, 

And those where flowers spring from the ground 
Enriched by blood his followers draw." 



102 WHISTLING VERSUS KTSSING. 

But as I list, the martial star 

Sings faint and fainter in the arch, 

May be the olden spirit of wai- 
ls failing in the lovely torch, — 

But hark ! it strikes another theme, 
Trichoral music fills the air, 

Orbs rise from heaven's celestial dream 
Flashing like cimeters were there. 

And song on song breaks into spray 
Till sung by all the crystal spheres, 

For Hall was born upon this day 
To immortality of years. 
. Peoria, Ills., September 3, 1877. 



WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. 



THE TWENTY-SEVENTH LETTER. 

A note from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on "the twenty-seventh 
letter of the alphabet" is published by the Indianapolis News. The 
correspondent who sends it to the News says: "I begged it for the 
News." It is evident that Dr. Holmes was impressed with the char- 
acter of the fair inquirer's letter, and answered it, believing La- 

vinia (which is the second name of Miss , a worthy member of 

the Society of Friends) to be a lady, but his P. B. seems to indicate 
that he half believed himself sold as to the sex. I will first give you 
a note of explanation sent us by Lavinia: 

"The inclosed letter of Dr. Holmes was called forth by the follow- 
ing circumstance: 'Cousin Edward' and I were reading with much 
interest the story of 'Elsie Venner,' as it came out in the Atlantic 
Monthly. One day he asked me: ' What does Dr. Holmes mean by the 
twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet?' and when I answered he was 
not satisfied, and insisted I should -vriteandask the illustrious author 



WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. 10o 

for an explanation. To my inquiry the poet kindly sent me this witty 
reply. My willingness to gratify thy expressed wish prevails, and I 
place it at thy disposal. With great respect, ' Lavinia.' " 

Boston, March 4, 1861. 

"MY DEAR Miss LAVINIA: The twenty-seventh letter of the alpha - 
phet is pronounced by applying the 1 ps of the person speaking it to 
the cheek of a friend and puckering and parting the same with a pe- 
culiar explosive sound. 'Cousin Edward' will show you how to 
speak this labial consonant, no doubt, and allow you to show your 
proficiency by practicing it with your lips against his cheek. For 
further information you had better consult your gra'mma. Very 
truly yours, O. W. Holmes. 

"P.S.— Are you any relation to ' lovely young Lavinia ' who 'once 
had friends,' mentioned by Thomson in his 'Seasons.' " 

When the first lord of creation 

Was aware lie owned a whistle, 

'Twas a prime alleviation 

When his nerves began to bristle, 

Proving a boon companion, that 

His island was not lonely, 

Sparing him from discoursing chat 

Which would have bored him, only, 

For dialects were, there, uncouth 

And rhetoric difficle, 

And so he puckered up his mouth 

And blew upon his whistle ; 

Brutes pranced across the everglade, 

Fish set their fins to quivering 

Charmed by that first sweet windy trade 

Which set the bugle shivering. 

We read that Satan's speech began 

In English or in Dutch, 

But cursed as an ophidian 

He had no use for such, 



104 WHISTLING VERSUS KISSING. 

A trick of Old Theogony 
Leveling man with brute, 
Born with a like phrenology — 
And springing from one root, — 
But error often proves the fact, 
This proves man has a Soul, 
A Conscience, Dialect, and Tact, 
Keligion and Control. 

But I am not for argument, 
Offering this whiff of Keason 
Where verse becomes its instrument 
To ornament and season. 

Ape tried his mouth-piece, though to grin, 

When Adam saw — this other 

Was nearest like himself, as kin 

In grinning, makes a brother ; 

So this young whistler spent his time 

Twixt music and Orthoepy, 

The only thing without a rhyme 

In all this land of Poesy. 

For the On-o-mat-o-po-et-ic claims 

Of all of Eden's creatures, 

He had a way to find their names, 

By voices and by features ; — 

Which task accomplished, like a man 

The woman-half at church, 

Some entertaining work would plan 

To give Ennui the lurch. 



WHISTLINC; VERSUS KISSING. 105 

Masing of this, lie dropped asleep, 

When such u fog of glory 

Over his jaded bruin did creep 

White, violet and rosy, 

And such a head of misty gold 

And flesh of alabaster 

As coming freshly from the mold 

In palpitating plaster, 

Produced such joy, 't was like a wound — 

Where his lone heart was bumping, 

A fracture, — as, his ribs were sound 

They seemed to burst with thumping. 

Breaking the trance which bound his eyes 

And ideal volition, 
" Thou comest from from my side," he cries, 
"I saw thee in my vision." 

When Adam saw the pleased surprise 

Her radiant face was succoring, 

He felt his olden habit rise 

He felt his lips were puckering, — 

Eve was a woman, therefore wise, 

Knew she would mil at whis'ling, 

Gave to his habit, her sweet surmise 

Puckering up her mouth for kissing. 



lOli GEORGE DENNISOS PRENTICE. 



GEORGE DENNISCXN PRENTICE. 



mi: SCHOLAR, THE POET, THE EDITOR. 

Yuv writer is especially fond of Mr. Prentice's poems, which are 
strong, mire, and tender. And this was Intensified by the writer's 
mother verifying a statement of his biographer, that Mr. Prentice 
taught a school in Smithfield, Rhode Island, which is hernativo place, 
and at her father's house he was a visitor, a brother attending his 
academy. 

She remembers his fondness for poetry and some of the effusions 
to His early loves, which are not mentioned in his life sketch. 

That Mr. Prentice will have lovers so long as books exists is un- 
doubted. 

'.'he commencement of the poem refers to Prentice's oft repeated 
allusion to the '-stars.'' which certainly are a type of the genius which 
steadily soared skyward. 

The seventh stan.'a alludes to his lines ou " An Infant's Grave," an 
emigrant's child buried in the forest of Arkansas, and which he met 
with and tenderly plaeed thereon a little tlower to annually memorise 
his loving eare. The poem is very tOUChingly told in the writer's own 
words : 

•■ lis well] 'tis well; but oh. such fate. 
Seems very, very desolate.'' 

A.MONG thy loved star>. 1 saw 

The brightest star of all,— 
Ami earth awhile, the heaven, for 

Thy brilliant beams to tall. 

Thou had'st move wisdom in thy brain, 

More beauty in thy eye, 
More nyu to lay thy mental train. 

Thv voice more melody, 



GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE. 107 

Than hosts on hosts of other men ; 

Thy heart the richest vein 
Of friendship, always fuller for 

It flowed away like rain, 
The sweetest sympathy, that made 

The music for thy deeds, 
And gave thy poetry the shade 

Of pure religions creeds. 

Crowned with the talents of thy mind 

The first of monarch's crowned. 
Thy proudest conquests, were the kind 

Which in its toil are found ; 
And bearing westward, with thy star, 

The Nation saw thy hand 
Flashing- her signal-fires afar 

To her remotest land. 

Wrapped in thy splendor, like a cloud 

Around thy person cast, 
We then beheld the eager crowd 

O'er which thy spirit passed, 
Th' earuestfnl, trustful, gladful throng 

Hungry for living bread, 
Who felt their hearts and minds grow strong 

Upon thy wisdom fed. 

But like the master of the ship 

When mutiny appears, 
Thy thrilling orders sealed the lip 

On many a patriot's fears ; 



108 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE, 

And steadied many a faltering rank, 
And strengthened many a heart, 

And lived to see the fearful bank 
Of war-clouds all depart. 

O'er thy magnetic glory beamed 

Thy soft, harmonious rays, 
As Iris tenderly is gleamed 

Across the sun's strong gaze, 
Bending as gently as she bends 

The poet's dream to hear, 
Who, by thy fairer wings ascends 

Into a purer sphere. 

Or weeping as a mother weeps 

Above her infant's grave, 
Thy fount of tender feeliug creeps 

Up to thy eyes, to save 
The little stranger lying low 

Far, far upon the wild, 
Planting a little flower to blow, 

As though it were thy child. 

O, many a way gleams with thy "stars" 

Into the land of rest, 
Where thou hast gone to make thy cause 

With the brightest and the best; 
If thou hast been sublimed, thou know'st- 

Before the Eternal's seat, 
Thy " stars" of genius are a host, 

Heaven's lilies round thy feet. 



at franklin's grave. 109 



THE PHARAOHS. 

Methinks I hear the kings of Egypt laugh 
While at Osiris' table now they quaff, 
When — some full scholar wanders to the dead 
Boasting of all the modern books he 's read — 
Telling "their stone primers, ages confused of Time, 
To learn a letter or to read a line." 



AT FRANKLIN'S GRAVE. 

I weep upon his precious earth 
But not one bitter tear ; 
Because he was of noblest worth 
I sought his barrow here ; 
He was a master-piece of God 
Made in divinest mold, 
And consecrated is the sod 
His mortal frame, can hold. 

'Twas foreordained, that he was wise 

In wisdom more than gold, 

The thoughts which from his braiu did rise 

Were oracles of old, 

He was the light of chaos, then, 

The pillar and the cloud, 

Freedom's apostle, helping men 

To tear away her shroud. 



110 at franklin's grave. 

What sacred sympathies were hound 
Up with his giant mind; 
Like dew of Herman dropping round 
He cherished all mankind, 
Casting into the common store 
His glorious gifts from Heaven, 
Enslaved Thought opened every door 
And sent to him for leaven. 

What wond'rous visions came to be 
His pure Philosophy ; 
The mysteries of Earth, Sky, and Sea 
And their cosmology ; 
Upon his ladder to the skies 
Which brought the Lightning down, 
What noble names thereafter rise 
Upon his grand Renown. 

Men serve their Destiny — and he 

Began our golden age ; — 

His deeds did print immortally 

Our own historic page ; 

Seizing the Pen, he led the van 

Beside a Washington, 

Giving the world the mightiest span 

Of Architectural Freedom, w T on. 

For him she spreads her starry wrings 
To chain the bolts of levin, „ 
For him her bow-men set their strings 
Now, with the shafts of heaven, 



MY OWN DEAR HEART. Ill 

For him the nation proudly strives 
For letters and for men 
To wipe toil's sweaty brow — by lives 
Devoted to the pen. 



MY OWN DEAR HEART. 

My owm dear heart, my own dear heart 

So light w T ith love and joy, 
What sweetheart makes me e'er so glad 

Or gives such sweet annoy? 
Thy whispers are such tender, sweet 

Love-nothings, I 'd not dare 
To utter them allowed, they'd break 

Like bubbles in the air. 

If once my lips begin, I pause, 

As every thought were still 
Betraying the precious joy, I feel 

By some magic, of thy will : 
I laugh with thee, I weep with thee, 

In all thy humor share, 
No heart, except my own true heart 

Feels my love so little care. 

My own dear heart, my own dear heart, 

Over thy thousand ills 
Tear after tear more bitterly flows 

Than over another's spills, 



112 MY OWN DEAR HEART. 

Nursing thee, clear heart, night and day 

And giving thee relief, 
I prove the truest, faith fulest friend 

Of all, who share thy grief. 

My own dear heart, my own dear heart, 

Why should I prize thee less 
Than other hearts, I prize and serve 

In happiness or distress ? 
Let me live true to thee, dear heart, 

Sparing thee from fault and stain, 
I shall receive heaven's sweet reward 

And thou heaven's bliss attain. 

My own dear heart, my own dear heart 

With its own small heaven is stored, 
Love, from the holy of holies ta'en 

And scarred, like Heaven's Adored, — 
Charity with all her attributes, 

Friendship which binds like brothers, 
Esteem, which makes us love ourselves 

And desire the esteem of others. 



MOUNT VERNON. 113 



MOUNT VERNON. 

From notes taken during a trip through the States, including visit 
to Exposition, we extract the following, written in Washington City 
on the eve of a day passed in visiting Mount Vernon. 

We stopped for some minutes on the lawn before the mansion, and 
when we started to enter, felt like removing the shoes from our feet» 
for it seemed to us a holy place. 

The circumstance recalls our first view of the home of Abraham 
Lincoln, at Springfield, 111. ; when, with eyes streaming with tears and 
voice breaking with sobs, we dare not trust a reply to questions of 
friends, who were kindly riding with us by the residence of the la- 
mented president. 

Mount Vernon ! in thy sacred shade 

I wandered to and fro, 
And over all the pleasant glade 

The past did come and go. 

The knotted oaks in gray decay, 

The vines supporting these, 
The asters blue along the way 

Were full of memories. 

The high commanding walk which led 

Directly to the door, 
The hill-side wild with nature, wed 

To all Potomac's lore. 

The river rolling grandly on 

Down to the mighty sea, 
Its waves no grayer, that have gone 

Thus many a century ; 



114 MOUNT VERNON. 

Yet every one that kissed the shore 

To history did belong, 
The Indian sang his pow-wow o'er, 

The Englishman his song. 

I lingered here and there about 
Pained still to cross the door, 

Where th' disembodied had gone out 
Returning there, no more. 

What was I ! that I dare approach 
This shrine of love and trust ? 

The very mightiest would encroach 
Seemingly, on the dust ; 

And yet I sat me down upon 
The chairs, as though I knew 

The occupant, with Washington 
To hold an interview ; 

I drew up to the table there 

As though I was a guest, 
And viewed the pictures, with an air 

Of free familiar zest. 

The doors stood ope from room to room, 
The crowd swayed in and out, 

But it was struggling with the gloom 
To make the picture out. 

For who were these ? they were not Knox, 
Ts"or Green, nor Lafayette, 



MOUNT VERNON. 115 

There was no woman, on whose locks 
The mistress' halo set ; 

There was no loftier one than all, 
Whose strong commanding glance 

Reproved the virtues lax, or call 
Them from their painful trance ; 

There was no sweet commanding voice, 

Could start the noble thrill 
Of pride in it, till the annoys 

Of vanity were still. 

It fairly seemed as though the place 

Was held thus by a trance, 
That surely, those great ones would grace 

Again the lordly manse ; 

I thought to hear the silver tone 

Of music through the house, 
The harpsichord, but wanted one 

Light touch, of the fair spouse ; 

I thought to hear the servants' feet 

Both up and down the stair, 
As Randolph, Jefferson, were greet 

As guests, and honored there. 

The past was all embodied here, 

As of to-day a part, 
And standing at the Chieftain's bier 

The grateful thought did start, 



116 THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE. 

That pilgrim nations would come here, 

Vernon still unforgot, — 
Though reconquering nature reappear 

O'er all this sacred spot. 
October 16, 1876. 



THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE, BOSTON. 

Evening on the Charles River Bridge, Boston, after a visit to Mount 
Auburn and the graves of Longfellow, Everett, Agassiz, Charlotte 
Cushman, and other noted American characters. 

Day stepped quietly into heaven, 
Furled her feathery beams of light, 

As the Darkness climbed the mountain 
Listening to the owl of night. 

From a silvery crown of moonlight, 
Heavenly spirits there might bear 

High above the graves of Auburn, 
A mild radiance filled the air. 

Under the milky-way of gaslights 
Show the towns from rim to rim, 

While the leaden arch of twilight 
Spans the hill from brim to brim. 

Spans the great tumultuous city 

Like an eagle wild with life, 
Wings unfurled with winds of commerce, 

Every pinion plumed for strife. 



THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE. 117 

Like an Apocalyptic vision 

Shone to illuminate the stones, 
In a twinkling blazed the spirit 

Of the great electric suns. 

In this grand illumination, 

Like a spirit climbed the moon 
Down the side of Auburn, farther, 

The Charles River glowed like noon. 

In that dawn of peace men pray for 
Looked the evening world — I thought 

The grim batteries in the harbor 
Vanished then, like spectres swart. 

Steely bands along the horizon 

Trace the waters of the bay, 
Dipping downward into ocean 

Where its shores at sunrise lay. 

Holy praises clearly musical 

Down the ambient air descend, 
While the sickle slowly faded, 

As, the tombs were going to rend — 

Sweeter sing those heavenly voices 
Praising over the graves of men, 
And I saw the Seers and Poets 
Walking on the earth again. 
November 2, 1883. 



118 THE MARCH OF TIME. 



THE MARCH OF TIME. 

1884. 

Scarce had the angels' voices hushed 

Their song of " Peace to man," 
When all the galaxy of stars 

Another song began ; 

Like Cherubim and Seraphim 

Around the Throne of Light, 
They struck their golden harps, and Heaven 

Flashed with their music bright ; 

Far in the Eastern Hemisphere 

Came rolling on the strains, 
Sublime and sweet, as Thales heard 

On the Nilotic plains ; 

Echo on echo touched the hills 

Which bursted into flame — 
As the Parsee hailed the rising sun ; 

And Time passed on the same ; 

Olympus summoned forth the Greeks 

To try the State's pastimes ; 
And by " Olympiad" time was called 

In histories and in rhymes ; 



THE MARCH OF TIME. 119 

'Folding his eagle wings awhile 

Upon Italia's plains ; 
From mighty " Roma" — was the date. 

Which long with time remains ; 

And thus passed down, the march of time ; 

As men by time were schooled ; 
When time made conquest of them all 

As each one rose and ruled. 

Scarce had the angels' voices hushed 

Their songs of " Love to man," 
When all the galaxy of stars 

Another song began ; 

For time upon his annual flight, 

Pausing on Bethlehem's plain 
And listening to the angel's song, 

Joined with a new refrain ; 

Tender and sweet and like a bell 

It struck upon the ear, 
The Wise men pause — to catch the note — 

Lifting the heart in prayer ; 

And Mary clasped her Holy born 

Listening to the strain ; 
For Time then, struck his harp but—" Once! " 

And then passed on again. 

Within the palace, Herod clad 
In royal robes, had met 



(.20 THE MARCH OF TIME. 

The Maji who bad read the stars, 

Whose anxious faces set 

The king's heart very ill at ease, 
Casting the fate which traced 

An obscure King for Israel, 
By name " Messiah" graced ; 

And time upon his annual round, 
Had heard the wailing cry 

Of Israel's maids and mother-, 
For "Israel's babes should die;" 

Alighting upon Judea's plain 

And striking his harp — "Twice," 

It was the Christian — Century 
Which Time had made his prize. 

If constant stars ring out a year 

And ring one in again, 
Above their silvery twinklings, clear 

Is heard Old Time's refrain ; 

Striking his bar}) en England's coast, 
By the stiff Eastern breeze 

Its Sixteen Hundred notes were borne 
Over the Western seas; 

The Northern pine was ready strung 
With all its thousand strings; 



THE MARCH OF TIME. 121 

The Southern cypress heard its moss 
Like Jubal's harp — that sings ; 

And like a Spirit, with the ship, 

The Mayflower reached the dock, 
And since, we've always counted time 
Dated from Plymouth Rock. 

Scarce had the angels' voices hushed 

Their song of " Love to man," 
When all the galaxy of stars 

Another song began ; 

Like Cherubim and Seraphim 

Around the Throne of Light; 
They struck their golden harps, and Heaven 

Flashed with their music bright ; 

Again, Old Time folds up his wings 

When all the fields are white, 
A wreath of pine upon his brow, 

His sandals soft and light ; 

Again, he strikes his golden harp 

Under the midnight stars ; 
Singing of Springtime, and the flowers 

Which at October pause ; 

The roses die, the lilies fade, 
The leaves and fruits all go, 



122 O YE HILLS. 

He's singing of these, — and the dead 
Under the snow below ; 

He sings of all life's gladdening hopes 
The New Year has in store, 

While he is striking on his harp 
For Eigh teen-Eighty-Four. 

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow 
Praise Him all creatures here below, 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 



O YE HILLS. 

O ye hills ! O ye hills ! when ye wake and rejoice 
Like a great congregation ye lift up one voice ; 
When the Spirit of Light flieth over at morn, 
And the stars at the rush of his wings are withdrawn ; 
Like the brightness that filled the Lord's house on the 

hill, 
When the priests, for, the glow of Jehovah stood still, — 
When the glory is streaming your arches along, 
When your choirs of a thousand are full of their song, 
When the incense goes up from the river and rill 
Ye have both the old grandeur of temple and hill. 

Ye are volumes of Time ! upon every page 
Of creation, you open the stories of age; 



O YE HILLS. 123 

With the dove, that went forth at the lull of the flood, 
When above the bare waters, old Ararat stood ; — 

We see one displaying the banner of cloud 

When the Law-giver opened his pleadings aloud, 

And his commands went forth with the pledge of the 

Lord 
"That the deeds of mankind should be judged by his 

word ; " 

One is wrapped in a pall of great sorrow, so black, 
The sun in the folds, lost its heavenly track, 
The rocks moved about at the sob of the earth, — 
The graves opened wide for the dead to come forth ; 

Then the touch of the feet of a Christ upon one 
The place was transfigured, with angels, thereon, 
And lifting the vail He had worn among men 
He revealed the Redeemer in heaven again. 

Though ye pause on the way to the skies — ye are 

nearer,— 
When altars were builded and heaven seemed clearer, 
When the vintage empurpled to empty its wine, 
When the olive was greened to a shading divine, 
When the corn bowed down to the earth and adored, 
And they numbered the flocks, while Pans' harmony 

poured. 

Ye were clad in the green robe of Peace ! 

But O Hills! 
Ye have trenched on the Pride, and the Avarice that kills, 



124 O YE HILLS. 

Ye have portioned the earth with your columnar walls, 
And men looked on your face, were content — till the 

calls 
Of Ambition, unfurled them, its death dealing wings, 
And the mountains were scaled, like the lowlier things, 
And your ponderous gates were unlocked with the 

sword : 
But God, the new earth has revealed thy word, 
For we go up like those who went singing a song, 
Where the steam-driven chariot goes whirling along. 

Ye are mightier than Cheops ! ye are tombs of a race, — 
Without groan, without pain, ye were reared into place, 
And the red-men went free as the deer on the hill, 
The proud men who were kinged with the bald-eagle's 

quill, 
Who told over the fall, summer, winter, and May, 
From the planting of corn to the great hunting day 
By the silvery lettering they read on the moon, 
And the Great Spirit led them by sight as a boon, 
And they hallowed the graves of their father's with love, 
And rejoiced in the hunt and the bison above, 
Ami with bow, and with arrow they went to the field 
To themselves and their children, eternally sealed. 

Ye are tombs of a race — but the type on your page 
Is to dim, to discover the people or age ! 
Ye are tombs, ye are temples, ye are altars, ye are hills 
Which the praise of Elohim — everlastingly fills, 
And my heart breaketh up into song at your voice, 
Ail that's in me hath joined your grand choir to rejoice. 



DANIEL BOONE. 125 



DANIEL BOONE. 

A REMINISCENCE. 

In the spring of 1855, after spending a night at the Capitol Hotel, 
Frankfort, Ky., we arose early the next morning to visit the cemetery 
before our departure by train. Climbing the foot-way which leads 
to the place, we found ourselves suspended some two hundred 
feet in the air upon the almost perpendicular face of the ascent, the 
path about eighteen inches wide, and rocks fringed with evergreens 
towering in magnificent height above our heads. 

Resting at a point where a cool spring comes leaping down from 
its source and falls into a natural rock, we took in the scene with all 
the enthusiasm of a young traveler. The Kentucky river, with its 
bold, bastioned bluffs, was on our right; South Frankfort lay before 
us: the railroad at our feet; woods pressing close up to the track, and 
spreading away in umbrageous concourse, made up one of those 
romantic views we never forget. 

Reaching the little wooden gate, we passed into the grounds and be- 
gan our wanderings amongthe homes of the dead. We came at length 
upon a dimple in the land about twenty feet in diameter, where lay 
two graves, unmarked save by a number of cedar stumps, which 
had been lifted by the roots, trimmed a little and hauled to the place. 
On expressing our astonishment at the proximity of such rude 
monuments, our companion informed us that we were standing at 
the graves of Daniel Boone and his wife. We sat down on the sward 
overcome by the incident, and burying our faces in our hands, shed 
tears, and tried to recall what we had gathered in childhood from 
Flint's memoir of the wonderful hunter of Kentucky. We saw him 
now as he tridded the canebrake, and skulked through the forest to 
elude the wary Indian; we saw him as his eagle eye pierced the coverts 
which sheltered the game, or gleamed admiringly over some everglade 
of flowers, comprehending at a glance the hunter's paradise; and 
we wept at the dangers he had run and the foes he had encountered. 

A hunter without a bow and a lover of nature, but most of all, of 
this nobleman of the wildwoods of our adopted state, we had chanced 
upon his resting place, were standing on the smallest spot of land he 
ever owned, were at the grave of Daniel Boone. Gathering a few 
splinters from the stumps as a memorial, we sorrowfully left the spot 



126 DANIEL BOONE. 

and returned to the city, which has since erected a handsome monu- 
ment, sculptured and chased with designs expressive of the pioneer's 
experience; reflecting that inout homes of peace and comfort we can 
never be too gratefu] ortoo faithful to the memory of the white braves 

of early times. Boone died in 1818. 

Nature's green casket here, embalms 

The sturdy pioneer, 
And lias arrayed her floral charms 

Thereon these sixty year, 
And flushed and royal autumn's trace 

In season has been here, 
And knightly winter holds his place 

Beside the sacred bier. 

The winds that cross the Cumberland 

Have found the Hunter's grave, 
And marked his repose on the strand 

Of the blue Kentucky's wave, 
The rich insculptured pile of men 

Who reverently here trod, 

Bespeak the culture, that has been 
Reared from the savage sod. 

Methinks the hero only lies 

Alert, to meet the foe, 
The stealthiest Indian feels his eves — 

lire his rifle's flash can show, 
He feels the ambush must reveal 

A hunter of Kentucky, 

Whose pale-faced bravery won the seal 
For the ground so dark and bloody. 



DANIEL boom:. 127 

The noble forest- born, he wore 

Its freedom like a king, — 
The trees umbrageous shades did pour 

And flowers thickly spring, 
And beauteous nimble-footed deer 

Here roamed the hills and vales, 
The newest, best primeval, here 

His sure birthright entails. 

Wild-bred with Nature, he was as 
The pattern of our race, 

Enjoyed her solitudes, but was 

Full of all human grace, 
Partook of woman's sweetest love, 

And friendship's teuderest thrill, 
All soft affections helped to move 

His strong, untutored will. 

'Twas no silken fraternal bond 

That made men brothers then ; 
'Twas sacrifice, Godlike, and fond, 

As His who died for men ; 
Where the stockaded fort arose — 

For the emigrant's defense, 
Was death shared like a boon by those 

Who scorned all self-defense. 

Together sweetly sing the names 

Of Harold, Boone, and Kenton, 
Around their valorous deeds Jhere flames 

The Muse's noble mention, 



128 ENGLAND WILL CAKE FOR EGYPT. 

Like them — she loves the generous West 
Who gives her here a portion, 

But more, each bullet-proven breast 
Who gave it their devotion. 

She plucks her pinion just to trace 

The Pioneer's bier, 
And bows above his marble face 

To dew it with a tear, 
It falls upon the turf that's green 

Above his restful bed, 
And where the springing shaft is seen 

Her poetic bay has spread. 

The morning's azure gates were spread, 

The rosy winds passed through, 
A soft and golden splendor led 

Up each solemn avenue, 
It walked as 't were the spirit of God, 

It found us there alone — 
And, lo ! we stood upon the sod, 

At the grave of Daniel Boone. 



ENGLAND WILL CARE FOR EGYPT. 

England will care for Egypt, now she's old 

And tottering helpless, under her crown of stone ; 

When earth was fresh, with its primeval mold 
Her Asian founders, worshipers of the Sun, 



ENGLAND WILL CARE FOR EGYPT. 129 

Commenced her greatness, pride, longevity, glory, — 
On her stone age immortalized their story. 

England will care for Egypt, for her gods 

Were, ages past, too feeble to help her people ; 

And they have petrified beneath the floods 

Of sands which drowned them, and the great upheaval 

Of Nil us brings no devotee to prayer,— 

The mysteries of Osiris are laid bare. 

England will care for Egypt as a kingdom, 
Not th' aristocratic beggar of a Porte ; — 

This mother of nations is the Eastern Bedlam 
Her laws a pest, her revolutions sport ; 

And here the Pharaohs swayed, the Ptolemies fell, 

The Mamelukes murdered — Arabi died as well. 

England will care for Egypt and her tradition, 

Zoan's groaning stones, heard in their glyphic traces, 

While scholars are using the torch of erudition 
Peering into the rock imprisoning Ramases, 

The Hebrew host, the march, the route they fled 

Not alone in the Myth of Papyrus, are read. 

England will care for Egypt till her stones 

Have sung and spoken and groaned out all they know; 

Her hieroglyphics like her Ra-faced suns 
And her fructifying Osiris set aflow 

Thousands of living streams of sacred truth 

Her monuments have pent up in her youth. 



1-jO THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 

Till men who felt her darkness, see her truth 
Now hewing it through, as the Egyptian fog 

Was broken and lifted — when the Hebrews' ruth 
Had driven them to their Exodus, and the boi 

Sibornian passed, the sea drank up their foes; 

Egypt's stone volumes, tell us what she knows. 
February, 1884. 



THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 

I With a Temperance Moral.] 

The shoulders of the clouds, at last 

Tired of their fleece of snow, 

Casting it to the winds to bear 

Away to earth below, 

Though wound around their grasping fists 

To carry safely down, 

The fringes caught upon the hills 

And chimneys of the town, 

Snapping it loudly as they flew, 

The forest bare they passed 

And left some hanging, like the sails 

Upon a navy's mast, 

Clutching the rest with fingers stiff 

They soar, they dip, they leap, 

The rocky ledge tears off some shreds 

Which they roll in a heap, 

Tossing the balls with airy feet 

Into the fields below 

Like children at their winter sport 



THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM 131 

Of tumbling in the snow ; 
Again, inflated like a puff 
And rolling round the sky 
T was caught up in the stubborn knots 
Only the winds can tie, 
'Twas like a pendulum all day 
Swinging from left to right, 
But now — it lay in cloggy drifts 
As dropped the winds with night, 
The bearings of the road were lost 
Over the stretch between 
The city and the farm-house, where 
My actors can be seen. 

"John, bring a back-log from the pile 
Of the fall hickory 
You cut in the October days. 
The best stick of the tree ! 
And, while you're out, just shut the cows 
Into the southern shed, 
And with the corn and salted hay 
The herd must be well fed ! 
And from the mow throw down a bed 
For Filly, Sweet, and Roan, 
To beasts, on such a night as this 
Man's best side may be shown ! 
In weather such as this, I wish 
My house and barns were great 
Enough, to shelter many more 
Till the dreadful cold abate ; 
I never eat our bread, but what 



Vol THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 

I think of some who would 

Do more work, in the Master's cause, 

And do His name more good ; 

My bins are filled, until they look 

As if their waists must ache, 

I must put all my substance by, — 

I can no field forsake, — 

But such a spell as this — I wish 

I could fulfill God's word — 

Send for the poor in His bv-way3 

To come and share my board ; 

My Bible tells me what to do, 

It 's friendly to the poor, 

John! put the back-log on, and set 

The chimney in a roar 

Letting the glow across the snow 

Point some one to our door ; 

The sheep were in the fold all day, 

See they are all secure ! 

The flock in such a night as this 

If sheltered, may endure, 

The rooster and his wives will keep 

Their perch, while this will stay. 

And so escape the stirT'ning cold 

Tucked in the loft away." 

" Yes, Ezra, we have tried to live 
By christian love eontently, 
The kind that 's practiced with the lips 
Don't always touch one's plenty, 
And when I heard the hum and whir 



THE CHRISTMAS SNOWSTORM. 133 

Of Maggie's wheel all day, 

I thought of all the smiles I 'd get 

For what I'd give away. 

You know our neighbor Brimful 's left 

His children in the cold, 

To see how much money, the till 

Of old Pint's shop can hold, — 

His Belle has got no gown to wear 

To church, and stays at home 

Because, he helped to buy the furs 

For Pint's Sue, who can come, — ; 

The boys, can wear their Kerseymere 

And boots which cost a ten, 

For Brimful will go there and drink 

His whisky with the men ; 

O, I remember what was said 

When his Robert went away. 

The coals heaped then, upon his heart, 

Would burn as deep to-day 

And daily burned the wound — it made 

In the boy's soul, to put 

The scanty earnings in Pint's till, 

Though his poor lips were mute ; — 

I sent John o'er at early morn 

With socks and milk and meal, 

The woman is too w T eak to work, 

Pint's shame she can 't conceal, 

But with her fragile life she '11 cling 

Unto her children more, 

She 's but a broken-hearted thing 

With hope turned from the door. 



134 THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 

" Maggie, your fingers were so deft 
Spinning the rolls to-day, 
Just stop drawing the thread awhile 
And put the wheel away, 
And take the half-peck apple tray 
And bring it heaping full, 
And soon Ave '11 have some toasting hot 
Roasting before the yule. 

"Ten years ago to-night, Ezra, 
If you'll think so far back — 
Our William put his worldly all 
Into a little pack. 

Talking in such a strain, the while, 
And I. thought boyish-wise 
About the wond'rous steps and turns 
Which up to Fortune rise, 
About another kind of stock 
Which takes a premium, 
' Of gold and silver and per cent 
Until my lips grew dumb. 
So rich and gaudy — till I thought 
The fire-dogs stared at me 
Leering their eyes far back, to sneer 
Up at our plain roof-tree ; 
I brought the Bible from the drawers 
And laid it on the stand, 
To prove the filial chain was strong 
He gave us each a hand, 
And then you read in Matthew, two, 
'The Bethlehem babe was born/ — 



THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 135 

Our own came on a Christmas eve 
We named it ' Will/ next morn ; 
I thought of him so much to-day 
Since John brought home the pine, — 
He was our angel, sent us in 
The place of one divine, — 
I often wonder at the joy 
Which followed him — we've known 
Such stores of comfort, since that day, 
Ourselves, and in our own." 

Yes, mother, I have watched the snow 

Like frightened birds, all day 

Come dropping down the air in flocks 

Or blown by winds away, 

And when the fields were bleak with white 

A host of graves were seeu, 

For every stump and shrub were like 

A stone wdiere one had been ; 

So gloomy are my thoughts, for I 

Keep thinking of the boy, 

I fear his visit is postponed 

And so, with it, our joy, 

But, Maggie, give the fire a poke 

And turn the apples round, 

The room shall wear the welcome look, 

As our joy-hour was found ! 

You tell the story o'er so true, 

I see it now before 

My eyes, as though that year did not 

Kun backward half a score, 



136 THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 

Go place the bible on the stand 

I'll read the chapter two, 

There's something dim before my eyes — 

Won't let the letters show, — 

The cold must have searched out my chest,- 

My voice is growing worse, — 

Do mother, take your specks and read — 

The rest from the sixth verse. — 

" Hark ! John go out to the front door 
I thought I heard a ring, 
A cutter might come out from town 
Now it has stopped snowing! 
The station's but three miles away 
And if the boy has come, 
He'll never mind the drifts, that lie 
Between there and his home ! " 

" By Jingo ! Mr. Warren come 
And bring the light straight-way, 
I think they got the engine bell 
And hitched it to the sleigh ! 
That horse has on a head of steam — 
And if they do n't break up 
Before this house, the runners won't 
Follow long behind his croup! 
The snap that's in the man who can 
Turn this frost, would suffice 
The weather-clerk to put into 
His batch of winter's ice ! 
Je-mi-ma ! he's run on the switch 



THE CHRISTMAS SNOW-STORM. 137 

And brought up, at the gate, 
I 'm out to tell the stranger, where, 
They best accommodate ! 
Steady, and let the light's sliver 
Shine straight across the snow, 
Your hope is like a prophecy 
I think it has brought two ! " 

" William, my boy, I see that we 
Still the Lord's favor gain, 
The years pass on, and leave us old, 
They do not leave us pain 
Since you come home each Christmas Eve 
And make us young again." 

" Well, father, bid the stranger in 
And have him share your fire, 
Together we left town at morn, 
Through snow the train did mire, — ■ 
Beside, I'm his best, faithful friend, 
And he has heard enough 
Of farmer Warren's heavenly side 
To try his earthly stuff." 

" Bless me ; I think I look into 
Young Robert BrimfuTs face ; 
The beard has grown upon his chin — 
But my dim sight can trace 
The speaking truth still in his eyes, 
Nobleness across his brow, 
While chestnut curls still cluster round 
His head in many a row, 



138 CAPTAIN JOHN J. DESMOND. 

Tlii^ Christmas storm has favoring gales 
For neighbor Brimful's sail, 
The Lord has blessings in reserve, 
I see, for those who fail." 



CAPTAIN JOHN J. DESMOND, 

A VICTIM OF THE RIOT, CINCINNATI, MARCH 29, 1884. 

Suggested by the pathetic wail of his distracted mother— "Oh that 
he had been a coward." 

Why that wail of despair which to heaven did fly ? 
The hero had conquered his march to the bier, 
He had died like a soldier, as men love to die 
When the call has been just and the duty severe, 
As men answer the call when their country's assailed 
By invaders abroad or by tyrants at home, 
When the Laws are defied and Injustice entailed 
And the growl can be heard, of the Avenger to come. 

Twas a woman who uttered that wail of despair, 
A mother, who saw that a bullet had crashed 
Through the brain of a son she had cultured with care, 
While she held every foe to his honor abashed. 
On her gray hairs has fallen the glow of his name, 
With its honor maintained, he could strive for a crown, 
On her brow too, has fallen the rays of his fame, 
He was twining the wreath which would bring him re- 
nown. 



PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. 139 

'Twas the wail of a mother, who knew that her boy 
Had been torn from the breasts which had fed him with 

milk, 
Had been snatched from the lips which had kissed his 

with joy, 
From the bands which caressed his small fingers of 

silk ; 
She could wail for her babe without weakness or fear, 
Not with precept of courage, with the precept of Love 
She had conquered his heart, — as the sunbeams appear 
To attract and dissolve every storm-cloud above. 

Did she wail o'er a hero? then she wailed o'er a son ! 
She had taught him " forgiveness is stronger than war, 
That a kiss for a blow is not cowardly done, 
Cowards likewise are braver, than breakers of Law ; " 
There's no shadow can tarnish the gold of his name, 
To the grave, it will carry her gray hairs in peace, 
There's no leaf to be clipped from the wreath of his 

fame, 
For the Eight, do the crowns, of the martyrs increase. 



THE PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING 
YEAR. 

The winds are cracking their gusty whips 
And surrying through the sky, 
As they were driving the flocks of snow 
Which in the Northward fly, 



140 PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. 

The forests mourning in suits of blaek, 
The earth is wrinkled and old. 

But the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 

What earthly joy have the very poor? 

What comfort or what content 

In a rickety house with a broken roof, 

When the bitterest blasts are sent? 

When the cold creeps over their trembling limbs 

In a stiffening and snaky fold? 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 

A handful of lire on the broken hearth, 

A smothering, smoking pile 

He blows, with a remnant of feeble breath 

That a spark of hope may smile, 

A pittance of coal from the frozen street 

Which the rich man's ashes hold, 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 

Why need the poor a well-filled shed 
When the cellar is empty and bare? 
The harvest of summer seems not for him, 
Though the Lord sent enough and to spare ; 
" Where there 's little of food, there's little of fire" 
Is the shortest sermon told, 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 
Is the poor hungry and cold. 



PITIFUL SIGHT OF THE CHANGING YEAR. 141 

The preacher may call till the day of doom 
On the wicked to "be saved," 
The prison will gape wide as the church 
When men are by want enslaved, 
There were never fetters forged so sure, 
Or bolts that so surely hold, 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 

There was never a fiend like the fiend of want, 

There was never a curse like this, 

The body can sin, and the soul feel pure — 

As an angel up in bliss, 

While man is judging the outward act. 

His God does the inward hold, 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 

O God has cheapened His stores, that man 

Shall have no want to bear, 

The North and the South have filled the land 

With abundance to eat aud to wear, 

Yet thousands seek for work in vain, 

Eating the bread that's doled, 

O the pitiful sight of the changing year 

Is the poor hungry and cold. 



142 THE ROSE. 



THE ROSE. 

There is something divine in } T our marvelous grace 
That tells where the Spirit of Love must abide, 
While the blushes of modesty seen on your face 
Preserves from a touch of the Spirit of Pride. 

Ye meet at the bridal, where mirthfulness lends 
Like the cloy of a passion, a sadness of voice, 
On your splendor the thorn of the Spirit attends, 
While the heart on your odorous balm will rejoice. 

In your beauty ye gather to cover the bier, 
With a radiance dispelling the thought of relief, 
The features of death in your presence appear 
Too lovely for earth and too holy for grief. 

Ye are twined for the bugle, the banner, the arch, 
Where the feet of the conqueror proudly will tread, 
In the stains of their glory, the victors will march 
To stain with your beauty, the graves of their dead. 

Ye are gayest, to meet where the dancers convene, 
Where Joy swoons and revives in the music's bright 

power, 
Though the fires of love rival your tropical sheen, 
Fond bosoms are clasped by your love-knots this hour. 



SWEET SPIRIT OF LOVE. 143 

With our Passion ye meet, from the crib to the bier, 
Still uncloyed, are expecting your beautiful bloom 
Where a heaven will wipe from our face every tear, 
And its June in the flame of its Roses consume. 



SWEET SPIRIT OF LOVE. 

Sweet Spirit of Love, can'st thou prolong 

This ecstasy of love an hour? 
Confessions, which to thee belong 

Give me supremely, to thy power, 
But thou can'st bring me no repose 

When once the fickle thrill awakes, 
The heart it enters, ne'er can close, 

Its ecstasy subdues or breaks. 

I open all my heart and fling 

Upon thy bosom all that's told, 
Thou sweet intoxicant, and cling 

As mad, — yet thou did'st break my hold, 
And Earth has lost its paradise 

And heart-communion lost its bliss 
Because that hour forever flies 

When every vein was thrilled \uth this. 

Sweet Spirit of Love, if there's a place 
Where thou eternally can'st stay, 

And not be driven in disgrace 
Into the realms of outer day, 



144 LOVE AFTER TEA. 

Perhaps, to find the men, there, gods, 
To find the women, angels, — where 

So e'er the place, love makes no odds 
Betwixt courtship and marrying there. 



LOVE AFTER TEA. 



How bright are the pictures which young recollection 
Throws onto the foreground of life as we pass, 
But truer and fonder, in those hours of reflection 
When husband and wife hold the magical glass. 
While pencils of bright flame are etching the lamp 

white 
Whose mellowing glow fills the room everywhere, 
Enjoying their rockers drawn close to the fire-light 
Two faces are clearing of wrinkles and care. 

ii. 
Her swift flying feet have been ready to answer 
The constant exactions of pleasure and pain, 
Her fingers though skillful will never advance her 
Beyond what to-day has done over again, — 
The odds and the ends for the household all finished, 
The maid of all work left with nothing to do, 
The children at last, leave the circle diminished, 
Alone, at the fire-side the lovers are two. 



MAMMOTH CAVE. 145 

III. 

Her eyes kindly twinkle with love for the husband, 
The smiles brightly mist o'er his beard for the wife, 
The tick of the second goes teasing the hour-hand 
And no longer troubling the passage of life, — 
Two hearts beat as one in the purest communion 
That comes, after seal of connubial ban, 
And lips meet to kiss in the holiest union, 
The kiss that is shameless 'twixt woman and man. 

IV. 

And there, as two angels sat down 'mong the lilies 
Where whitest and sweetest in heaven above, 
Beatified ones, by the blessed affinities 
Of love, in the spirit of all that is love, 
Their troubles all cast on the Healing Physician, 
Again there are two, in the Eden of man, 
The tempter has slunk to the shades of perdition 
And love shows divine, in the conjugal plan. 
Fall River, Mass., July 28, 1883. 



MAMMOTH CAVE. 

The first verse of the poem was composed at the cave; the remain- 
der in the stage-coach on the way to Cave City, ten miles distant. 

When earth terraqueous left the Creator's hand, 
Water contended with the encroaching land ; 
And a diluvial ocean in its flow 
Carried the cunnino- lime unto its foe, 



14(3 MAMMOTH (AVE. 

Which storing up the bottom of the sea 

The lime-rock there was born ; as God, would be, 

Using the forces of the rebellious wave 

To build the dungeons of the Mammoth Cave. 

Honored by God with an eternal age, 

Man feels His awful presence on each page ; 

Hears how His mighty spirit moves the sea; 

The firmaments round out immensity ; 

And dense with darkness, earth lias seen no light 

Under thick clouds which shut the heaven from sight, 

When the young world rose dripping from the wave 

Which piled the bed-rock of the Mammoth Cave. 

The sun was ladened with it- gaseous breath, 
And all the atmosphere was filled with death ; 
Except, the rocks, nature had swooned away, — 
Beauty had found no medium for its ray, — 
Gigantic forests slumbered in the germ 
Ferns and club-mosses, till their awakening term, 
And the subsidence of the acidulous wave 
Which cut the rock-ribs of the Mammoth Cave. 

Now like the rush of angels' wings, the breeze 
Sung its first lullaby across the seas ; 
The earth beheld the splendor of the bow 
Spanning the heaven — where gods are said to go, 
And well they might, and not dishonor Him 
Who makes the glory of the angels dim ; 
And sparkling with the beauty of the wave. 
The rock had blossomed, in the Mammoth Cave. 



A SCRAP OF POETRY. 147 

True to the rule of Time, which gives the crown 

After the trial of the cross is borne, 

God hung the rose upon the cavern's mouth, 

The violet put her jacinth petals forth 

And drank the dew, when still condensing night 

Had cooled the earth and vapor floating light, 

And Light had kissed as fondly drop and wave 

And made its covenant with the Mammoth Cave. 

O crown of mind, O Immortality, 
Go find the forces of the land and sea ! 
Explore the heaven and earth, and thou shalt see 
God will be God of all their mystery ! 
Yield up thy pride, " to look upon His face," 
And take thy life a favor of His grace, 
For thou shalt bow before Him, like the wave 
Which built the caverns of the Mammoth Cave. 
August 9, 1882 



A SCRAP OF POETRY. 

Nogamoto O. Kabe, a Japanese prince, completed his studies at 
Yale College; made the tour of the United States and Europe, returning 
to Japan in 1883. 

Thank Heaven, it is one song fills all the Earth, 
Sung in the same language, in the same chord of music, 
Terrestrially, in all souls it has birth, 
Celestially, it is the song cherubic. 

Love, Brotherhood, Humanity are one, 
One magnetism finds in all a power, 



148 THE PIPE OF PEACE. 

Whore Asian Islands lirst induce the San 

To monld his splendor into fruit and flower. 

Where torrid Afric rears the tower of palm. 
Where Oeean keeps the chains of Arctic on, 
Where Earth needs vassals, and mankind need halm, 
Love does translate all languages — by one. 

Here's every zone, here every race can flourish, 
Here every product grows and vegetates, 

With all we are Republican, we nourish 

All men with freedom, knowledge, and estates. 

In that dear Isle Nippon, O then recall 

The awaiting for you in this i% Home sweet home," 

Your lines in pleasant places here did fall, 

Old Yale's your Mater, wheresoe'er you roam. 



THE PIPE OF PEACE. 

President Hayes was presented with the Peace-Pipe, Sept 28, 1877. 

A barbaric bowl is the Indian's pipe. 

The sacred Pipe of Peace ; 
Tis hewn from the old rock's flinty grip, 
Then hollowed out, for its roomy lip, 

And carved with the bison's fleece 
And antlers grasping each spiny tip 

Pound the Indian Pipe of Peace. 



THE PIPE OF PEACE. 149 

A reed of slender stem they wind 

With plumes — which the eagle frees, 
And filled with weed, where'er they find 
The spirit of good in the human kind 

They light the Pipe of Peace, 
The lips of the Indian when combined 

Bring forth the spirit of peace. 

It has written like ink the silvery air, 

The smoke of the Pipe of Peace ; 
A treaty of peace by the blue Delaware 
When the father of love the Lennappe met there 

And he purchased the lands of these, 
The oath of the red-man was sacred who sware 

With Penn on the Pipe of Peace. 

It has sweeten'd the lips of the brave Illinois 

The breath of the Pipe of Peace ; 
When the priest of the white man accepted his toy, 
The breast of the savage was throbbing with joy 

After smoking the Pipe of Peace, 
The Christ of Marquette, was a vision t' enjoy, 

He saw in the Pipe of Peace. 

It has banded a brotherhood distant and wide 

The smoke of the Pipe of Peace ; 
It has glisten'd with spray from the Ocean tide, 
Has rolled like a cloud up the Cumberland side 

And swung o'er Yosemite's 
And sprung like the elk 'cross the Great Divide 

The smoke of the Pipe of Peace. 



150 THE PIPE OF PEACE. 

If the white man carries a selfish heart 

When he smokes the Pipe of Peace, 
From their lands and their homes they must depart- 
O the Cherokee knoweth the graves apart 

Of his Braves — he left with these — 
From his graves eondemn'd, since taking the part 

Of pariah, the whites to please. 

If the Choctaw lived like the white brave, when 

He offered the Pipe of Peace, 
The laws of the whites, were the laws of men 
Who conquer'd a world, were conquering then 

Every foot of ground from tin 
They too must depart to be savages, when 

The white Brave was to please. 

Yes, the white men carry a selfish heart 
When they smoke the Pipe of Peace : 

Though the hills were of gold, it was their part 

To do, as they'd wish the Indian heart 
Would do by them, with these, 

O Red Cloud found the cross — his part 
Of the white men's vision of peace. 

The White Father, only had this to tell, 
Wheu he smoked the Pipe of Peace ; 
"The rivers are numbered by which they dwell, 

Th' forests are numbered and numbers foretell 
The last of the Pipes of Peace. 

For Nature has claims, she must yield as well 
And the braves must yield with these." 



THE DANDELION. 151 



THE DANDELION. 

Crown me with Dandelion 

Strewn by the Spring, 
Full of the cheery gold 

Found in a ring, 
Full of the maiden-breath 

Found in a flower, 
Bring me the starry -gold 

Fresh, to my bower. 

After the feet of the 

Spring have flown by, 
Leaving the field like 

A patch of the sky, 
Down, 'moug the grasses 

They twinkle and shine, 
She's the enchantress 

Who opens the mine. 

Rich, as the yellow coin 

Made at the mint, 
With the sweet face of spring 

For the imprint, 
Gather the starry-gold 

Rich as a Jew's — 
For the bright buckles too, 

Worn on my shoes. 



152 THE NORTHMEN. 



THE NORTHMEN. 

O they arc gallant, gallant Captains 

Who sail to the Polar Main, 
To conquer by courage and not by sword 

The cold on its native plain. 

Who gallantly, gallantly drive their ships 

Into the icebergs' jaws, 
And woe to the crew and the navy too 

When caught in their bloodless maws. 

They have gallant, gallant hearts who wait 

While the Sun is held at bay, 
And Cold and Darkness six long months 

Hold stern titanic sway. 

They have gallant, gallant spirits who watch 

The fight six months prolong, 
When the Sun enforces his titan sway 

And the cold reinforced too strong. 

As gallant a Dutchman as ever has sailed 

His frigate away to the North 
Where ice grows faster than corn at the South, 

Was Heemskerk with the pluck of his cloth. 

As gallant a crew as from England sailed 
Was charmed by the Kraken cold, 



THE NORTHMEN. 153 

Were crushed in its toils — like the Laocoon, 
With no grave hut its icy fold. 

As gallant, as gallant as admiral could be 

And brave as a lion for its cub, 
McClintock quadrupled his search for Sir John 

As though the North Pole he would suub. 

Aud Kane has twice entered the den of the bear 

And twice herbinated in ice, 
And Hall took meridians and parallels there 

While the icicles froze to his eyes. 

And Nordenskold gallantly circled the Pole 

And came through the East by a door 
That never was opened because of the cold 

By any bold sailor before. 

As gallantly Schwatka did hazard his life 

Where Franklin and Irving remain, 
Where Cheops in ice, will immortalize fame 

And the cold will as deathless complain. 

Far, far more eternal than marble or bronze 

These tablets their valor enroll, 
No sound of the hammer and graver is heard 

In building their tombs at the Pole. 

The valorous men who tried bearding the cold, — 

DeLong who succumbed to its spies, 
Danenhower's ursine grip on the fiend of the Pole, 

Greely's rescue from famine and ice, 



154 the slave's purchase. 

Where Sechley as gallantly, gallantly went 

When the dying a paladin call, 
This frigid sea-errantry calls for a man 

To be offered up Christlike for all. 

Wiiks, D'Unville and Ross, with those gallant com- 

' mauds 

Who felt the ice crunching their bones, 
O as gallant commands as ever nations sent 

Have sailed to the frozen zones. 



THE SLAVE'S PURCHASE. 

Freedom that 's purchased with Slavery, must be 
Freedom the sweetest descended from Liberty ; 
For Time which appears to grow like any tree 
Seems ever increasing, buying it, to be free; 
And Hope that glitters on the distant goal, a star, 
Oftentimes must sink too low to shine, — at war 
With that emotional gloominess in the soul 
When high the billows of desperation roll — 
And nigh to drowning in this abandonment, he 
Discovers no Savins Rock but SI 



lavery, 



No hope but in bondage, kissing even this rod, 

But feeling a grave under every foot of sod ; 

O what rewards shall Heaven award the slave 

Who himself raised — body, soul, mind — from such 



grave ? 



tuk slave's purchase. 155 

And when his lungs are inflated with freedom, he 
Bondage assumes, till he buys wife and children free ; 
man is love in Liberty like this? 
Would'st thine toil, suffer, sacrifice like his? 
Patriots will die for country, moralists die 
For principle, and Christians die for faith. 
And men have died for men in Slavery, — 
But not like the freedman treading the wheel to save 
The souls which see no ultimate but a grave ; 
Who will define such love as his? A wraith 
Comes in love's place after death or separation, — 
Yet this man toils, will make grander abnegation 
For love which the master would destroy, than he 
Who owns the slave and holds all love is free ; 
Such love among the freedmen proves to me 
That hearts have broken of love in Slavery ! 
O what rewards will Heaven award the slave 
AVho raised his wife and children from this grave ? 
O Freedom that's purchased with slavery, must be 
Freedom the sweetest descended from Liberty ! 
Kentucky, September 1, 1884. 



156 CENTENNIAL SONGS. 



CENTENNIAL SONGS. 

The following Centennial songs were published in brochure dur- 
ing 1876, in Peoria, Ills. 

Inspired with the sentiments of a patriot and the principles of a 
Unionist, a grave reverence for the solemn responsibilities assumed 
by our early fathers in fighting and conquering for us this sacred 
trust, and the prayerful hope that statesmen will conscientiously 
protect and advance the high interest confided to their keeping, the 
authoress must wish, that all who read these songs could be likewise 
inspired with the love of that freedom which 

" Utters thunder till the world shall cease." 



SONG OF THE TEA KETTLE. 

Air. — Home, Sweet Home. 

Hark to the song which the tea-kettle sings, 

The domestic tea-kettle, boiling for tea, 
Clattering its lid — and at every puff flings 
A cloud, that grows fast, as a tempest at sea. 
" Home, Home, sweet, sweet home. 
There's no place like home, there's no place like 
home." 

When the great man at home put his hand in his pocket 
And whined out so often, " he had n't a pound 

To wager at piquet or swell the war docket," 
What could the lords do then but give him more ground ? 
" Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

Till all of the homes which their cousins did settle 
And bodies — and pockets — and consciences too 



SONG OF THE TEAKETTLE. 157 

Belong to the king — who by warrants could nettle 
His subjects with the old yoke just furbished anew. 
"Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

And then when our forefathers had to send over 

A distance of three thousand miles for a hat 
And crow-bar and paper, — they thought they could 
love her — 
But make these at home, as they 'd genius for that. 
" Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

Said England : " But O how maternal, to send them 
Their clothing and furnish their tables beside, 

Perhaps they'll cry out, ' its oppression, or our phlegm,' 
We'll keep them a visiting, though, till they 've died ! " 
"Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

" Their uncles, and aunties, and cousins, are striving 
At home here, to keep them supplied with enough, 

Perhaps they'll die too, of the trouble of living, 
If we don't give the colonies shops a rebuff. " 
"Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

"We'll tax them on sugar, and rum, and molasses, 
Forbid Carolina to make tar and staves, 

We'll send them our wines too — and just to try passes — 
We '11 send o'er a cargo of tea, to the slaves. " 
11 Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

The tea-kettle dried up its drops of vexation 
I thought all its vapors of hate, it had poured, 



158 YANKEE DOODLE. 

When suddenly hissing a splenetic " taxation" 

I thought, 'twas the night the tea went overboard. 
"Home, Home, sweet, sweet home," etc. 

YANKEE DOODLE. 

December 16 — '73 

They gave the great tea party, 
And when they got through with the tea 
The men were feeling hearty 
And everybody whistled then 

The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It stirred up all the minute men - 
And roused the British poodle. 

They ban the courts to Salem-town, 

And shut the custom-houses 
And Boston looks a little down, 
Before her spleen composes 
But everybody whistled then 

The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It stirred up all the minute men 
And roused the British poodle. 

It snarled, until it got a bill 

Through parliament to cany, 
To quarter troops in Boston, till, 
The people they could harry 
And everybody whistled then 
The tune of Yankee Doodle, 



YANKEE DOODLE. 159 

It stirred up all the minute men 
And roused the British poodle. 

The ports deserted, customs stopped, 
• Wharves waiting for the duster 
You may have thought their courage dropped, — 
They'd more than they dared muster 
For everybody whistled then 

The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It stirred up all the minute men 
And roused the British poodle. 

And when the British troops marched out 

Eight hundred strong, for Concord, 
Eighty true patriots set about 
A rally to the good Lord 

And everybody whistled then 
The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It cheered up all the minute men 
But roused the British poodle. 

As times looked blue, the Whigs called for 

A Congress to assemble 
Which showed a deadly sting for war, 
Making the British tremble 
And everybody whistled then 
The time of Yankee Doodle, 
It cheered up all the minute men 
But roused the British poodle. 

With thirteen rattles in its tail 
The Colonial snake prepared 



160 THE TRUMPET. 

To make th' British constrictor quail, 
To see its rights were squared 
And everybody whistled then 

The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It stirred up all the minute men 
And roused the British poodle. 

They showed what stuff they were made of 

As well as a flint musket, 
At Bunker Hill they spilled enough 
Of blood to make the grass wet 
And everybody whistled then 
The tune of Yankee Doodle, 
It cheered up all the fighting men 
And roused the Britsh poodle. 

And if they thought our brain was light 

And thought our heart eonceity, 
For Yankee Doodle we did fight 
Until w T e forced a treaty 

And everybody whistled then 
The tune of Yaukee Doodle, 
Before the world we are the men 
AVho whipped the British Poodle. 

THE TRUMPET. 

Air.— " Portuguese Hymn." 

Then, like it rolled from the blast of a trumpet, 
"O nation! I try every cause in a balance, 



THE TRUMPET 



1(51 



The Eight shall weigh down, and the Wrong shall weigh 

up, 

One word of my fiat is more than your talents ; 

Bare the sword ! let every man's right arm be 

ready 
And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on 

the sea. 

11 Put on the whole armor, to go into battle ! 

The cuirass of Truth, and the helmet of Justice, 
The tough shield of Godliness, borne through the con- 
flict 
And the cause you fight for, shall go never amiss, 
Bare the sword! let every man's right arm be 

ready 
And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on 
the sea. 

" 'T is I, who have measured the girth of the oceans, 
With continents fairest, their bosoms begemmed, 
They sit there, like sisters, but one ye shall people 
With races of freemen, which tyrants condemned, 
Bare the sword ! let every man's right arm be 

ready 
And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on 
the sea. 

"They shall leave you alone, in the land that ye came to, 
Your ships, was the rod that divided the sea, 

Your cause has the pillar of fire in the night-time, 
By day for your pillar of cloud I will be, 



162 THE FLACx. 

Bare the sword! let every man's right arm be 

ready 
And the foe shall melt down, like the foam on 

the sea. 

" Ye have taken a leader, a man I have chosen, 

Ye shall follow and fight where his valor leads you, 
Armipotent he shall lead you out victorious, 

In my strength I have panoplied him to go through, 
Bare the sword ! when every mau's right arm is 
ready 
The foe shall melt down, like the foam on the sea." 



THE FLAG— JANUARY 1, 1876. 

Tune.— Red, White, and Blue. 

It flies, it flies, is it a liviug thiug? 

Did it come from out the sky ? 
Does it sail aloug on feathery w T ing? 

Is it angel, bird or fly ? 
It delights to fly in mountain air 

Which ripens the mountain grass, 
It climbs from scrap to escarp there 
Where shocks of rude winds pass. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

It darts right toward the direst storm 
And where the lightnings lance 



THE FLAG. 163 

And where the thunders growl alarm 

Turns there, its eagle glance ; 
It descends to the gentle gales 

That swing o'er plains below, 
It comes ! On azure wing it sails 
With golden stars aglow. 

God be with us where e'er w T e may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

It is, it is the bonny flag 

By young freemen unfurled, 
Who swore a great oath ne'er to fag 

Till honored by the world ; 
Who swore to try afield the appeal 

And met the vaunting foe, 
And there with arms as true as steel 
To strike where it should go. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

Who swore, where cannons boomed, to go 

Where'er their colors lead, 
And where their rifles hissed, to show 

No foeman there could tread ; 
Who swore to carry it where suns 

Were wiped from off the sky — 



164 THE FLAG. 

By smoke and flame, from raging guns 
That spat their wrath so high. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

It snapped, defiance, like the wind — 

One hundred years ago, 
When men united as one mind 

All hardships to forego ; 
Meeting the bristling front of war 

And 'mid its iron talk, 
Did write in blood, a clause of law 
At Trenton, Guilford, York. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

Though shattered on the Brandy wine 

Under a leaden scourge, 
It waved a defiant ensign 

O'er the camp at Valley Forge ; 
• But shaking prouder every fold 
When kissed by the June sun, 
At Monmouth where the victory rolled 
Our flag the fairest, shone. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free ! 



AULD LANG SYNE. 165 

Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 

The gales at sea might beat its bars 

And rain of fire pour hard 
As when flying with all its scars 

From the Bonhomme Richard ; 
But life was in the bonny flag 
By young freemen unfurled, 
AVho swore a great oath ne'er to fag 
Till honored by the world. 

God be with us where e'er we may be, 
Victory perch on the Flag of the Free! 
Proudly waving away War's red wraith, 
O'er our Freedom it hovers like Faith. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

O, countrymen, join all and sing 

" Our happy, happy land," 
Divided we are always w r eak, 
United we shall stand, 

We sing the songs we used to sing 

In good old days of yore, 
That forced to rove, the winds will waft 
Us to our native shore, 
The good old songs we used to sing 

For good old days of yore, 
That forced to rove, the winds will waft 
Us to our native shore. 



166 AULD LANG SYNE. 

Where'er to-day, our countrymen 

They'll recollect her fame, 
And sing the songs we sing at home 
To celebrate her name, 

They '11 sing the songs we used to sing 

In good old days of yore, 
That wafted back to native land 
Their hearts will rove no more, 
The good old songs they love to sing 

For good old days of yore, 
That wafted back to native land 
Their hearts shall rove no more. 

May all who 've left their kindred dear 

And made with us a home, 
Find all the laws so pure and just 
They'll care no more to roam, 
Then join and sing the songs we sung 

In good old days of yore, 
That wafted here from fatherland, 
Your hearts may rove no more, 
The good old songs we love to sing 

For good old days of yore, 
That wafted here from fatherland 
Your hearts may rove no more. 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 167 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS— 1776-1876. 

Let the reader of the Independence Bells reflect, that the tories 
of the Revolutionary war must have been as chagrined at the mention 
of the successes of the Continental army as any Confederate can be at 
the mention of battles Avon by the Union army. It is imbecile and 
wicked to ignore our nation's history. The battles for the Union will 
as surely be read for all time, as the battles of England, France, Ger- 
many, Spain, Italy, or the conflicts of Russia and the Turks. — [Au- 
thoress. 

THE OLD BELL. 

" Hark ! to the Independence Bell 

From the dome of Liberty Hall ! 
The tale our iron lips can tell 

Like an old veteran's fall, 
Come up and hear the story, 'mid 

The scenes of the olden time, 
Where, our first throb for Freedom, did 

Set ringing every chime. 

"Our pulse was beating just as strong 

As any in the town, 
When feverish bullets sped along 

The plains of Lexington, 
And when our stumbling foemen fell 

Into their open graves, 
The reel lettering they left could tell 

What deeds, the patriot braves. 

" And when the swiftest couriers swoop 
Down, on the scattered towns, 



168 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 

And tell, bow every British troop 

Deserts the Boston downs, 
The bell it went off with a peal 

As sudden as a rocket ! 
Franklin's old printing-press did feel 
Also, the spirit of it ! 

" It was a hundred rears ago 

We held our speechful tongue, 
The sentient bell : waiting to show 

When the grandest deed was done ; 
Just like a mighty angel would 

With trumpet at his mouth, 
To roll a blast of tidings good 

O'er North, East, West, and South. 

" What yearning, prayerful hearts were led 

Up to the throne that day : 
That prayer for " Independence " said 

Enough, to give it sway, 
And when the immortal names went on 

The parchment with the rod, 
It was our new commandment stone 

Right from the hand of God. 

"If Aaron's rod can bud and bear 
Long as his j:>riesthood stands, — 

That pen has dropped a seed on, there, 
That's growing to shade all lands, 

A mighty tree, wherein the tribes 
Can shelter, just the tree 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 169 

The olden, and prophetic scribes 
Told, ' Jesus said, 'twould be.' 

" The eager patriots caught the sound 

And learned how freedom spoke ! 
The tidal wave of joy it found, 

To a loud ' Praise God ! ' broke 
And roll'd up to the azure cloud 

And roll'd off to the main, 
And oaths, by Him, that day, they vowed 

Set off a dreadful train. 

" The Quaker atmosphere was charged 

With spirit, as never, where 
The heavenly-hearted Perm had warred 

With only beads and prayer, 
But meekness couldn't endure the ring 

Of the king's balls, — to stake her 
Pluck against these, was sure to bring 

The volunteering Quaker. 

" The tune of the- old bell was heard 

Up in the pines of Maine ; 
It sped the coast, too, like a bird, 

Down to the Mexic main ; 
'Twas caught in Carolina's swamps; 

It woke up Eutaw Springs ; 
To it the British regular tramps 

When it at Cowpens rings. 

"The old bell hurries to declare 
How, with the drum's tattoo — 



170 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 

When rolling up the Delaware 
Came on the hurrying foe, — 

It called the sires and sons to arms, 
It heat the reveille, 

But lost its breath pounding alarms 
When Howe sailed in from sea. 

"The Sabbath bells all play'd the air, 

Such wond'rous love was in it; 
The Union learned its common prayer, 

When parson Jefferson blessed it : 
And where the dove-of-peace can come 

To nestle with the eagle, 
There, Love and Freedom find a home 

And men can worship equal. 

" We carried the key-note, which was found 

To cheer the gallant crew, 
With this, the gallant ship did bound 

Across Old Ocean blue, 
Before Key had her rhythm wrote 

The sailor loved to scan her 
Wild whistling music, note by note, 

Of the Star Spangled Banner. 

" Before this master found the scale 

And wrote her starry tune 
Our Banner proved the favoring sail 

Which flew before the sun ; 
With this, our tars the guns could slip 

On every enemy's cruiser, 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 171 

Lawrence did never give up the ship, 
Perry's sea-fight was a bruiser. 

" It was the Spirit of the Bell 

That started up the fray, 
Tripping the foemen when they fell 

At Resaca d'la Pal ma ; 
Through blasts of death it led away, 

It led out of the ditch, 
And with the foe at Monterey 

It was a very witch. 

" When the golden crown has fallen 

From the proud Chapultepec, 
Leaving Mexico an orphan 

And her gloamy age a wreck, 
Up among her white Sierras 

Floats this air from drum and fife, 
Like a storm swoop down the cheerers, 

Swoop our heroes to the strife. 

THE NEW BELL. 

" Hark, hark, to the new Liberty Bell 

From the dome of Liberty Hall ! 
The tale we volunteer to tell 

Rings round this starry ball ! 
The boys all know the Hancock march 

The girls the Lincoln prayer, 
But every Union pitch we search 

For Farragut's lyre there. 



172 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 

" When he was up among the ropes 

Lash'd to the main -top spar, 
Where for the Rebel ram he gropes 

He flashed out like a star ! 
And clearly, over the booming guns 

And yell of shot and shell 
A strain of hero-music runs 

Which struck sparks from the bell. — 

' ' When bright and glancing rays of steel 

Went flashing up Lookout, 
The boys in blue did never reel 

Before their foemen stout, 
And every hero did his work 

As right before his eyes 
Hooker and Grant and every Turk 

Were bound for Paradise. 

''And when a stream of fire and shell 

Pour'd out of Wagner, grim, 
The memory of our solemn knell 

Mov'd ev'ry heart with him, 
When, DuPont bared his brow, and stood 

With God's hands on his head — 
Vowing to make the Union good, 

Or give his life instead. 

"And when flint Thomas stood against 
The Rock of Chickamauga, 
There was a roll of bass commenced 
The hero alone could augur, 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 173 

And when the gunner's tuning-forks 

Struck their antiphouy, 
It woke an echo 'mong the rocks 

Which rung a victory. 

" And on the bell, and on the bell 

The strokes were fleetly falling, 
Fast as the concuss'd shot they fell 

The fun was never palling, 
And never since the Union gun 

Scattered the enemy, 
Did the Bell's clapper ever run 

The tune so merrily. 

" The bell for victory insane 

When dinging like a jester, 
Its tympanum caught the refrain 

The gallop from Winchester, 
'Face about, boys, we're going back, 

We 're going back to lick 'em ! ' 
Struck it with such a sudden thwack 

It shrieked out ' Double quick 'em !' 

" Our plumy banners road along 

The Avinds, like a free eagle ; 
When, up the sun rose bright and strong 

The Union stars looked regal, 
And when the day and darkness met 

Over those Southern regions, 
Our stars did never, never set 

With Sherman and his legions." 



174 INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 

These songs, like a long quipu cord, 

Knot up a hundred years ; 
Back — when the painted savage warr*d 

Like his brother beast, appears 
The conquering crew that pressed their way 

Through walls of waters wide, 
Overthrowing Nature's strong array 

In arms, on every side. 

Then, through the leafy windows pour 

Of temples vast and high, 
The notes that came to Freedom's shore 

In the bell of Liberty ; 
And hymns to God went singing through 

Old aisles unused to such, 
They turu'd the stately forest to 

The school-house and the church. 

The winds were busy with the sails 

That sought this distant shore, 
The new discover'd soil unveils 

Its thousand springs, which pour 
Into the waiting hands that spread 

The gifts with magic thrift, 
And Industry and Genius wed 

And Art and Skill they lift ! 

Wherever now, we wend our way, 
If toward the Northern gates 

And try their icy locks, or stray 
To the sun-pasture States, 



INDEPENDENCE BELLS. 175 

Or look for the prairie flowers, 

Or seek for golden sand, 
The Independence Bell there showers 

Its music on the land. 



176 THE OLD AND THE NEW. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW— JULY 4, 

1876. 

A hundred years with all their freight 

Are rolling out of sight, 

The centuries take another mate 

On their eternal flight, 

It came and found the gates ajar 

Which open on the east, 

It blazoned eacli name with a star, 

Thirteen ! — gloriously increased ; — 

It came and cast its flashing crown 

Down from its radiant brow, 

And called on God to send renown 

As its deserts allow, 

It hurled its scepter from its hand, 

It seized a pen of flame 

And wrote its oath so strong, the land 

Saw its prophetic name, 

It plead for "Progress, Truth, and Right " 

With all w T hich these entail, 

And held its glittering sword in sight 

To break — when these prevail ; 

It came with rudely armed men 

From hillside and from plain, 

The farm, the mill, the work-shop, then 

The school in which they train, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW. 177 

They had no manual of arms 
But practiced with a foe 
Who filled the forest with alarms, 
As winter with the snow. 

Our dear ! Our dear ! forefathers, who 

Died through these hundred years, 

Our filial gratitude will show 

Its blossoms as appears — 

Wherewith to deck your scattered graves 

Where, rescued by your name, 

The grass that waves above their eaves, 

Is whispering your fame. 

We love you for the toiling hand 

And busy, patient brain 

Which broke the soil and turned the land 

To traffic's golden gain ; 

We love you for the worrying thought 

Which tired nature down, 

For every crude invention wrought 

In rudest wood and stone ; 

We love you for the wrestling boor 

Who felled the forest trees 

And piled the walls and laid the floor 

Of puncheon out of these, 

Who toiled with rifle at his side 

Watching for lurking death, 

And yet his courage never died 

But with his final breath, 



ITS THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

Who saw his household growing strong 

o n o 

Although by danger shorn, 

Whose maids were cheered with rustic song 

And kissed when husking corn ; 

We. love you for the acts of faith 

Which made our fathers one, 

For what your backwoods' prayer eonvey'th 

Which led the preacher on, 

The scattered settlers' flag of smoke, 

The blazing ax they swung 

Were heralds of the light that broke 

Where the Good Tidings rung. 

How could they ever think to lay 
The broad foundations down 
Of such a government, as they 
Left us, to rear upon ? 
So few, so weak, so much in need 
Of money, power, and fame, 
Surely, they were the chosen seed 
To whom the blessing came. 

They guarded the pomerium 1 
The little Mayflower plowed, 

Within the stronger walls have come 

Now, the amassing crowd, 

They were the dress of many lands. 

They talk like many men 

And all put forth their brawny hands 

To heave our anchor then, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 179 

And when they cast it in the sea 
Of politics, our ship 
Rides out the angry waves as free 
As the storm-petrel's dip. 

A hundred years put forth their strength 

Audio! the mighty change, 

Steam strides now twenty leagues, its length 

An hour, across our range, 

The little hoat which floated on 

Our rivers, like a shell, 

Now nestles 'midst the reeds, or gone 

Down 'neath the turgid swell 

The iron-lunged leviathan 

Raises with blasts of breath, 

Vanquishing many a haughty clan 

Whose heart-breaks found them death. 

A hundred years put forth their wealth 

And lo ! the mighty show ; — 

A thousand industries, — our health, 

We see rise up, and go, 

Our unknown values — till the Type 

And spiritual Press 

Gave to the Century in our grip, 

Their Autographic dress. 

With giant progress at the helm 
Our hundred years have run 
And opened wide the western realm 
And passed out with the sun ; 



180 THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

The Asiatic lands have heard 

Aud seen our poud'rous train, 

These dead, within their graves have heard 

And wakened up again, — 

We hail the true prophetic day 

Of the millennium song, — 

Their despots tremble at our sway 

And cower before their wrong. 

1 Pomerium— A space around the walls of a city or town, it was 
anciently laid off with a plow. 



MY COUNTRY. ' 181 



MY COUNTRY— A THRENODE: 

Written during the corruption of public officials by the Whisky 
Ring, the winter of 1875-7G. 

My Country ! name for that sweet lyre 
Which gives the soul its noblest thrill, 

What other theme can so inspire? 
What song is so enrapturing still? 

My earliest Muse, thy suasive voice 

Which moved the land from end to end, 

When Virtues stirred thee to rejoice, — 
When Evils rous'd thee to forefend. 

When listening to thy chords divine, 
And few, thy story, then could mar, — 

We owned their sweet concord — " the sign 
Of Order" — was thy first great law. 

While all the adjunctives that wait 

Like ministers about this throne, 
Bespeak thy dignity of state, 

Adding their luster to thine own. 

Behold how easy Learning's point 
Cuts the shale of Ignorance to-day ; 

Wisdom comes newly from the mint 
Contending sternly for her sway ; 



182 MY COUNTRY. 

Behold how Genius snaps our chains, 
Unfetters all the laboring hands, 

And only asks for her sweet pains 

The friendship which her love commands ; 

Behold how lightly Labor lifts 

The rock, and earth, and yellow ore, 

How lightly o'er our broad fields, sifts 
The seed and brings it to our door; 

Behold how lightly fly the wheels, 
Behold how lightly ply the ships, 

Behold how lightly it unreels 

The railway, where the carriage trips. 

My Country in thy earlier hours 

Vocal with patriotic songs, 
How all their grandest music pours 

Thy flashing defiance, of wrongs ! — 

How every rood of land, that owned 
The name Columbia, we loved, 

How our Republic was renowned 
For unity, in which we moved ! — 

What if there was a cloud or two 
Between us and the effulgent sun ! 

The fairest sky we ever view 

Will have some shadows o'er it run. 

My Country, I would sing to thee 
A true, an earnest, wailing strain, 



MY COUNTRY. 183 

Flattery would mar its harmony, 

Then honest ! though it brings me pain. 

But thou art sad ! Thou canst not see 
Unsought, the clean, the just, the strong, 

With trembling consciences men flee 
Where Guilt stalks with its glass along. 

Et tu Brute I" thy breaking heart 

Hast uttured, with each falling stroke, 

Thou art no tyrant, but the part 
Of tyrants, bows thee to their yoke. 

My Country thou art sad ! And I 

Have sought the meaning of thy grief, 

Thou canst not put thy Keason by, — 
Thou must have for thy wrongs relief. 

Thou hast a hideous viper laid 

Too near thy vitals, thou must see ! 
Each branch of thy official aid 

Is poisoned with rank perjury. 

Thou hast the reprobate and vile 

And cruel in thy posts of trusts, 
Thy asylums reeking with guile 

And victims shackled in the dust. 

My Country, I had sung to thee 

A sweeter soug in other times, 
I wait the turn of destiny 

To sooth thee with a lover's rhymes. 



184 MY COUNTRY. 

For lovers can not always praise ! 

The Truth should be thy altar's flame, 
Another torch's flickering blaze 

Would leave thy heaven obscured the same. 

And I would sweep thy heaven serene 
Counting the stars upon thy sky ; 

Were this fair Western World a queen 
Would crown her with my own Country. 



AT MY FATHER'S GKAVE. 185 



SOUVENIRS. 



AT MY FATHER'S GRAVE. 

With filial reverence, I muse above 
This hillock, mingling with the dust I love, 
From the grave's trance, its noble form revived, 
The kind, impartial kiss, the look of pride 
As to his bosom I was fondly pressed 
And all his dear, paternal love expressed ; 
All ? No ; such love is deeper than the sea, 
Higher than the sky, and broader still, must be 
Than that eternity of space, where go 
The stars no telescope can ever show. 
Paternal love ! None ever said " How deep?" 
But felt a stronger billow onward sweep, 
Till love o'erwhelmed the body and the soul, 
And only heaven can be the objective pole 
Where we can feel we love, and where express 
In satisfying words, our blessedness. 

Stripped of the meretricious, false and vile, 

How looks the soul without a spot or soil ? 

Judgments of men are naught before heaven's God, 

The false, exposed by his purifying rod — 

Not labor, poverty, nor lack thereof 

Of those adornments, without which, men scoff; 



186 1 1 my father's grave. 

One hand no whiter than another's there, 
God asks ll the virtue with which toil did share;" 
And thy rough hand is whiter to me now 
Than her's who wields a pen and seams the brow 
With thought! Thine, a heroic daring in 
The world's Olympiad, its bright crown to win ; 
And she, who loved thee, strives for one less fair, 
Albeit mine is a wreath, and thine the rare 
And heavy diadem of one who drew 
The "sword from the plowshare," taking in lieu 
Rewards of heaven — and not of men as I, — 
But patiently waiting till thine hour to die. 

God has so made us, each shall live for each, 
None for himself. A broader Love did teaeh 
'That one forgiveness reaches all mankind;" 
Bearing this hopeful charity in mind 
We know the realm of heaven is full of love, 
Sweeter than the lilies — fonder than the dove, 
Each soul. And thine, dear father, thine how fair! 
Each gift unfolded like a rose in air, 
Shedding its radiance on the angels round, 
Drinking the spirtual light that's always found 
In heaven. Father, on thy love 1 grew, 
And child-like grieve, years lost, the love I drew. 
Peoria, MayU, 1882. 



HRDENDS' BURYING GROUND. 187 



FRIENDS' BURYING-GROUND. 

The Deed to the burying-graund adjoining the Friend's meeting- 
house, Woonsocket, K. I., bears date "17th December, the 6th of the 
reign of King <U-orw, the year of our Lord, 1719," described as 
" being tli- piece of hind whereon is a burying-ground for the people 
called Quakers." This interesting fact was kindly furnished by 
Richard Battey, clerk of Smithfield monthly meeting, October, V), 1883. 

Asuivs to ashes, dust to dust- 

Hero n inn ponders the lesson of trust, 

Till the angel of Life calleth over these tombs 

And the dead shall ascend from funereal glooms. 

How loyal to God is the dust that's here found ; 
Though, the King claimed his fee after deeding the 

ground, 
The Quaker affirmed, with the force of an oath, 
That a king is but man, and God sovereign of both ! 



The Sign Manual of royalty flourished apace, 

And the Quaker permitted a burial place 

As a favor to take and a privilege to ask, 

Though the sins of a king e'en the grave can not mask. 

For the cut of his coat and the brim of his hat, 
His dialect plain as the scriptural fact, 
For the spirit inspiring the prayer which he said, 
He is lying apart for the Judge of the Dead ! 

God is all in this place, where no stone does record 
The boast of a deed or the pride of a word, 



188 friends' burying-ground. 

For the Quaker is meek, and is lying apart 

From the trappings of wealth and the splendor of art. 

For the Judge of the Dead, what are plaudits and fame? 
Though the world wave its palms and hosannas acclaim, 
In the judgment of God how men's laurels will fade 
And the prince be uncrowned, and the beggar be paid. 

For the Judge of the Dead, what are marbles and 

bronze 
That a touch thrills with life and a thought fills with 

tones? 
The temples of Egypt, the pyramids, tombs^ 
Find their graves in the sand which the shifting wind 

combs. 

For the Judge of the Dead, what are beauty and pride? 

The stars are His work, and their glory beside ; 

All the beauty we boast, like their brightness must 

shine 
With the light that is borrowed from Beauty Divine. 

Here the proudest secure what the humblest may crave, 
The presence of God and the rest of the grave ; 
God is all in this place, for these hillocks depend 
On no favors of rank and no praises of friend. 

With her mantle of holiness nature will screen 
The dead who await Him, in slumber serene. 
Rest in peace ! Like the tents of old Israel spread, 
These standards wave holily over each head. 



MY MOTHER. 189 

Rest in peace ! While this spot is an Arimathea 
God's angels are watching the sepulchres here, 
Till these stones roll away and these bodies ascend 
From the grave full of night to the day without end. 

From this rest I go back to the world and its cares 
And vanities, bait for its thousand of snares, — 
I am Thine ! From the heart of a Quaker I came 
And my song was inspired by her spiritual name ! 

MY MOTHER. 

My mother, when I knew that thou wast dead 
The past swept by me, with her velvet tread, 
A semblance of thy person, radiant, fair 
And the rich beauty of thy girlhood, there ; 
Author of my life and of my being, here, 
Gone from us now — past years will reappear 
Like shining comforters from heaven's walls, 
When recollection thy dear name recalls. 

Called by thy love, my infant years appear, 
Maternal kisses sing around mine ear, 
Following the guidance of. thy loving hand, 
Drinking the tones thy loving w T ords command, 
Returning thine, mine love, then innocent, 
Thou, the good angel of my youth's content, 
Alas, that childhood should survive its bliss, 
To vex thee with my faults — which follow this. 

As God's dear bosom shares each new-born one 
The precious love, which from His breast does run, 



190 MY MOTHER. 

Thy precious love shared each his sweet supply 
And yet the fount of love was never dry, — 
Mingled with my tears, did still unbittered flow, 
Forgiveness healed each wound, and kissed each blow, 
The saint to whom we prayed, with each complaint, 
Though church and canon may not make the saint. 

Thy fertile mind — with every year I grew 
My mind expanding, every moment drew; 
My precious guide, e'en in those real things 
Which age and reason and experience brings ; 
Truer in council than all other friends; 
Fervent and steadfast whate'er change portends ; 
Partner in sorrow, comforter in grief, 
Thy touch, thy smile, thy look were my relief. 

How rich and full the heart which sheltered me ! 
When my dear children clung around thy knee 
Thy love has nursed them, as the noon-day sun 
Nurses the violets which the shade has grown, 
Trusting thy smiles as though they were mine own, 
Catching affection in thy look and tone ; 
Easing my burdens, thou didst doubly bear 
Thine own with thy sw T eet uncomplaining air. 

How warm and free then flowed my sympathy 
When these emotions drew me close to thee, 
These pangs, these joys,— I learned to my surprise 
I had not known thee, with my girlish eyes, 
Until our hearts were knit by maternal knots 
And common cares made our common lots 



MY MOTHER. 191 

I never knew how strong thy love could be 
Since first my life awoke thy love for me. 

How thy frail strength was exercised for me ; 
And oh, how pure thy noble heart must be ; 
Chasing all shadows from before my life, 
Making, arth better, heaven with brightness rife, 
Cheerfulemoug present things — so apt to cloy, 
Picturing the future as a time of joy, 
Thy song celestial — where the saints do come 
Must still continue the sweet strain of home. 

When kneeling by thy bed of pain, I knew 
The crucifying thought thy frail life drew, 
Smoothing thy brow as though in sweet repose, 
Folding thy hands as though a prayer arose, 
Thou wouldst not see me weep — and did control 
The pangs which pierced thee to the very soul ; 
Mother ! when draining death's cup to the lees, 
Thou couldst have died to spare thy children these. 

O God, forgive us every thought amiss ; 
Forgive each word which stung a heart like this; 
Forgive each deed which could have brought it shame ; 
Forgive each memory which we blush to name; 
O make us faithful to the trust we have ; 
Deserving of the friends our heart must crave ; 
Honoring forgiveness ! trustful, then in heaven 
To clasp her who left no fault unforgiven. 
Peoria, III., May 20, 1881. 



C 32 89 < 














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